‘I seem to photograph birds more than...

‘I seem to photograph birds more than anything else. They are the most challenging. . . . A flower just sits there.’

The walls of Anthony Mercieca’s Chula Vista home are covered with vivid color photographs of hawks, bison, bull elk and kit foxes. One picture--of an elf owl swooping down on a field mouse--took Mercieca over a week to capture just the way he wanted. But spending hours, even days, waiting for the right shot is nothing upsetting to the 51-year-old nature photographer who has traveled the world and snapped for such publications as National Geographic and Audubon. Mercieca retired early from National Steel & Shipbuilding Co. so he would have more time to pursue his passion. Most recently, he spends his days observing the peregrine falcons’ nest in the steelwork beneath the Coronado Bay Bridge. It was Mercieca who rescued one of the baby falcons after it left its nest for the first time and crashed into the side of the San Diego Trolley. Times staff writer Caroline Lemke interviewed Mercieca and Stan Honda photographed him.

I started in photography when I was about 16 years old. I was born and raised in Malta, and I did a lot of diving when I was growing up. I took pictures of only natural things. Very seldom would I do anything else.

I immigrated to the United States in 1959. I came to San Diego in 1960 and worked with National Steel & Shipbuilding for 27 years before retiring in 1987. When I first came here I didn’t know anybody, and Dave Fitch from Nelson’s Photo suggested I take a nature photography class at night school. He said I could meet people interested in the same things as me.

So my photography happened all along the way. I do a lot of work for National Wildlife and their publication for children, “Ranger Rick.” My stuff has been used by all the major publications--National Geographic, National Wildlife, Audubon.

I think my love of nature goes back to when I was a little kid. My father bought me a little bird, a yellow wagtail. They sold for three pennies in those days. I was interested in nature ever since then. I used to go out and trap birds and study them.

I’ve been to Alaska and Africa, and I’ve done a lot of photography in Arizona and Texas and North Dakota. Now I’m getting ready to go off to the Sierras. I will probably be there all summer.

I’ve done all these trips on vacations and weekends and evenings. You can accomplish a lot with just two days on the weekend, if you get everything organized. Getting organized means finding a bird’s nest, remembering where it is, and knowing when the young hatch.

I seem to photograph birds more than anything else. They are the most challenging. I mean, a flower just sits there, and some people do great work with that, but a bird . . . first you’ve got to find it, then you’ve got to get close enough. That’s a challenge.

Sometimes I work all night. Like, at Otay Lake there is a pair of night hawks that nest there every year. I wanted to get a picture of them feeding, so I spent several nights there. It took me three different years to finally get the picture.

I belong to the Peregrine Falcon Society, and our group decided when the birds below the Coronado Bridge fledge, somebody should be down there to help them. They aren’t very capable birds. They think--like when we were young and we thought we could do everything--that they can fly like their parents. And, as soon as they try to fly, they find out how little they can do. And they get tired very easily.

The first day, one of the birds flew out of the nest and ran into the side of the trolley. I saw this, went and picked it up, and took it to the zoo. We got that bird back from the zoo, and the very same day another bird got in trouble and broke its wing.

I’ve been to the nest every day twice a day since the birds fledged. In the first days, I spent all day there. It’s never boring.

It sure helps to have a lot of knowledge about the animals and birds you photograph. About all I read about is stuff about nature. I don’t call it an obsession. It’s not going to kill me if I don’t do it, but it sure would make my life a little harder.