Last modified: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 10:15 AM EDT
A coyote, above, is looking for a morning snack at Woods Farm in Attleboro. (Photos by Steven Brasier)

Wild photos

ATTLEBORO - For nearly 22 years, Steven Brasier has been a watershed tender with the city's water department, and in that time he's snapped some pretty wild pictures.

Maintaining the dams, mowing, cutting down diseased trees and performing general upkeep at Attleboro's seven watersheds has given him a unique view of wildlife and waterside scenery that he's captured through his camera, from cormorants to coyotes to stunning sunsets.

Brasier, a Rehoboth resident, quickly ticks off the list of the city's water resource areas: Manchester and Hoppin Hill reservoirs; Orr's Pond and the water treatment plant and Luther Dam; Mechanics Pond; Blake's Pond in West Mansfield; Lake Miramichi; and Crocker Pond in Wrentham.

And he has an album at the plant with photographs of all of them, documenting two decades of work in progress and work completed in those areas.

That's not all he has documented. Brasier is also the city's official weather records keeper who won an award in 2006 from the Attleboro Historic Commission for computerizing all the city's records on rainfall, snowfall, temperature and river flows back to the year 1937.

He's just upgraded his personal camera to a Canon Rebel. "I used to have just a Kodak," he said.

His favorite picture was one of a red-tailed hawk he spotted going after lunch on the dam at Hoppin Hill. It was the same hawk that the day before had landed three feet from him with a whoosh of wings. The bird clawed at the dirt and pulled out a mole.

"That probably was the one that had my heart beating the fastest," Brasier said.

Today's page contains a sampling of his autumn scene-snapping around the waterways he helps to maintain.

Pretty soon, when the snow arrives, he will turn his attention to plowing and painting. He's responsible for taking care of those "do's and don'ts" signs and he'll turn his eye to capturing the signs of the next season.

SUSAN LaHOUD can be reached at 508-236-0398 or at slahoud@thesunchronicle.com.