This is an excerpt from our newsletter. You never know where the stories might lead, but they can be quite an adventure in their own right.
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Imagine the single-minded determination salmon have to survive their years at sea and return to their birth waters, only to work and fight almost to their death to complete the 
circle.
This sequence of photos shows the smaller female salmon with her battered nose. The larger, dark male has a white gouge on his beak. He courted her for quite a while, running off a smaller male who was just as intent on being part of this final adventure.
The female mosied about, looking for just the right spot to dig her redd. As she did, the large male shadowed her until the smaller male cut in too close. The big fish would tear after the smaller one, chasing him forty or fifty feet from the female before turning back to her. But each time, the smaller male came right back.
For hours, the two males raced back and forth across the shallows. Then the female dug her redd, clearing the silt from between the rocks. This was where she would deposit the eggs. She might look dead in the shot at the right, but she's just turned sideways to fan the rocks clean.
When she was ready to lay, the larger male couldn't risk missing the moment by chasing off the smaller aggressor. Each male sidled in next to her just as the female shimmied.
Look closely at the picture to the left and you'll see all three fish have their mouths open. She ejected her eggs and they tumbled down in between the stones just as the males exploded, their milky white milt filling the water, the sperm from both males fertilizing the eggs.
The need for males to make sure their genes seed the next generation may not be tangible to the fish, but it's an intense instinct. Most whales aren't monogamous, but males will compete fiercely to be the last to mate with a female. That male's semen flushes the other males' semen out of the female and has the best chance of impregnanting the cow.
Note in the picture on the left how the larger male increased his sperms' chances by arcing over the female as she laid her eggs.
The female rapidly covered the eggs, creating a small whirlpool (right). His work done, the smaller fish left, but the larger male hung around for a while. We spotted the female hovering near her redd for several days and it was a melancholy sight. Maybe she was protecting it and maybe she just didn't have anywhere else to go; the redd was her last connection with this life. Each day, she had decomposed more.
All of that digging, then covering the
eggs had taken its toll. Her tail was tattered and ragged. Her skin was mottled and appeared to be rotting. But she still had the strength to stand her watch until it was over.
All three of the fish are probably dead now. Their mission, mysteriously ingrained in their brains from inception, was accomplished against such tremendous odds. It is an awesome spectacle to witness, and an honor.
As I've said for years - sometimes after getting a wondrous whale or dolphin shot and sometimes after missing it - nature photography takes patience, endurance and luck. We got to share this experience because Steph had all three and was willing to stand very still for a long time on a cold winter's day, waiting.