“I can imagine no more comfortable frame of mind for the conduct of life than a humorous resignation.”
(W. Somerset Maugham)

  

Sometimes it feels like you can’t win for losing.  It’s been a busier-than-usual busy week here so not much time for shooting.  The only interesting opportunity found the young Cooper’s hawk tucked inside lots of little branches so it was more stick-picking for me.  I’m getting better at it, to be sure,  but I wanted something with more in-your-face appeal.  Even the furballs hadn’t been around much or doing anything amusing when I had a minute with the camera so by Thursday I was feeling a little antsy.

It was a vacation day and we had plans to drive to Lansing for the monthly meeting of the Natural Resources Commission.  I’ve been attending these meetings in my capacity as president of the Michigan Wildlife Rehabilitators Association since we’ve been working closely with the Department of Natural Resources to modify the conservation orders after Chronic Wasting Disease was found here back in August.  This was the day the final decision was going to be made about the various options we’d come up with to continue deer rehabilitation.

I worked for a little while and then decided to double-check the meeting agenda so as to know just when we needed to hit the road for the somewhat long drive.  Normally our item of concern was reviewed during the afternoon portion of the day-long meeting but to my chagrin I saw that this time it was up for review at 10:00 a.m.  It was now 10:07 a.m.

Oops.

I quickly wrote a note to my counterparts at the DNR to apologize for my mix-up and ask them to let me know how it went.  Then started making other plans for the rest of the day.  It wasn’t long, however, before I got a return message back from one of them, obviously working during the meeting on his Blackberry, letting me know the review went well and the Commission would vote on our matter later in the afternoon after public appearances.  And would I be there later?

After all these months of hard work, you bet I was going to be there.  So plans were shifted back and the morning continued on.  But so, too, continued the speedbumps.

Around midday Bob called for me to step out back.  “Listen,” he said.  “What do you think that is?”

“A hawk,” I immediately replied.

“No, it sounds more like…like maybe a rabbit,” he said almost questioningly.

I listened some more and yes, the sound could have also been made by a small mammal in some sort of fearful distress.  It was not a big sound, but it was rather high-pitched and quite ardent. 

Suddenly, the source of the sound made itself known, appearing in the brushy growth surrounding one of the trees on the fence line 2 doors down:  a sub-adult Cooper’s hawk, and its almost-plaintive calling continued.  Then we heard a second sound, a little farther away, and quickly realized it was in response to the first. 

There were 2 Cooper’s hawks over there!

Not one to skip the opportunity to shoot a hawk perched nearly at eye level, I quickly went inside and grabbed Matilda.  It would be more stick-picking, but the distances was so comparatively small there was every chance this could be interesting.  I carefully set up near our own fence, checked the settings, and pressed the shutter release button.

Nothing.

I pressed the shutter release several more times and then saw the dreaded “EE” error message.  I hadn’t accidentally shifted the f-stop ring so looked at the control panel on top of the camera.

I’ll be doggoned if I didn’t have a near-dead battery.

The only thing to do was race inside, drop the battery into the charger, grab the D70, and put the 80-200mm lens on it.  A heft to hand-hold and shoot, but the only people who fail are those who don’t try so I raced out the front door and then quickly and quietly went down the street and up a neighbor’s driveway to try and peg a shot.

The angle wasn’t very good with the Coop so deep in the low brush, so I went down to the next house.  It was very cold and I felt a little conspicuous standing so near the house of one of the less-friendly neighbors.  Apparently there would be no good shot from any other angle except that from within our own yard, and it was almost a relief when the young Coop flew up and out of its brushy hiding place.  I returned home and tried to be philosophical about it.

But on top of the earlier meeting time faux pas it smarted.   A potentially great shot foiled by my own forgetfulness to charge the camera battery.  I told Bob that everything happens for a reason; more to convince me than him, really, and with a small sigh of resignation went back to doing the daily chores.  Within what seemed like only minutes, however, Bob called in from the patio to tell me that the young hawk was back!  By now, the quick-charging battery had enough juice to pull off some shots so I snatched it up and ran back outside.

Sure enough, there was the young beauty.  Slightly less-hidden and knowing I was out there watching it:

 

But something more was going on.  The young hawk was still calling and it was still being answered.  It was still looking all around, as if to try and see its responder.  Then it started looking down and its wings came out from its body.  For a second I thought it was getting ready to take flight, but instead it continued to simply gaze eagerly towards the ground:

 

Suddenly, there was a soft but clear and insidious “whoosh!” and up flew an adult Cooper’s hawk.  It landed on a nearby branch and both hawks began to “cloak” and bob at one another.  Then the adult moved closer to the younger hawk and the wing and feather spreading grew enormous, reminding us how closely connected birds remain to their ancient ancestors and bringing to mind the myths of dragons:

 

The younger hawk was making a lot more noise than the older one, and after a few absolutely amazing minutes the adult Cooper’s hawk flew away.  Not long afterwards, the young Coop flew off, too, but it went only as far as the enormous mulberry tree that sits on the lot line we share with our neighbors immediately to our east.  I walked around to the front and took aim from their driveway.  It was at this time that the day’s gloom began to briefly break up and the light was magical:

 

Almost thoroughly frozen through by now, I returned to the house.  But the young hawk had decided to rest for quite a while and it wasn’t long before I took my half-thawed Self back out onto the patio to get a few more shots.

It hadn’t been apparent until then but the young hawk had managed to eat.  As it rested in the frigid gusts of breeze that caused its feathers to ruffle and the entire tree sway slightly, it would occasionally throw its head up and back, mouth wide open, in order to empty its crop.  I managed to capture this as it was returning to a normal posture:

 

It was all so very terribly exciting.  I feel almost vindicated for forgetting to recharge the camera battery now; if I hadn’t messed up, I’d have attempted a few shots and we’d likely have just gone back inside and missed the whole awesome show.

And yes, we did make it to Lansing and, though a whirlwind trip, it ended up being very worthwhile.

“I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming that I have never made one.”
(James Gordon Bennett)

  

Yesterday’s blog was part of the day’s multi-tasking.  As I wrote it I was also going back and forth to take photographs in the backyard.  While my descriptions of our November gloom were true, the morning had eventually blessed us with a little sunshine and I wanted to take advantage of it, spending time with the furballs and hoping for a decent shot of the Cooper’s hawk who’d been spotted checking out the day’s possibilities from the big tree 3 doors down.

As always, the furballs never disappoint my photogrpher’s eyes.  The sunshine was obviously welcomed by them, too, though my worrisome little girl was slower than some to get going:

  

I love the old wooden fence that divides the backyards on the west side of our tiny lot.  It functions both as both a prop and a backdrop, and like the annual pumpkin fest, often sets the stage for more unusual and amusing shots:

  

Of course, by now, most of the furballs no longer pay much attention to me or Matilda.  Eleanor in particular is only ever really interested in her daily handout and, perhaps out of some sort of unconscious guilt over having ripped open the bedroom screen earlier in search of it, was quite the Queen Of Posing for me:

  

The thought that it was Thanksgiving was never far from my mind, though, so plenty of rations were tossed out between shutter clicks, making all the furry photograph subjects very happy.  But I write today not to express my appreciation for the furballs, but instead to ponder the day’s juxtaposition of reason to give thanks from the perspective of the Cooper’s hawk. 

As I’ve already said, the Coop was in the neighboring tree top by late morning, and it stayed put the entire time I spent photographing the antics of the squirrels.  Its position was not conducive to anything more than a positive-ID shot from the backyard, nor worth a walk up the street, but after I was done with the squirrels I decided to check out the shooting angle from the eastern bedroom on the second floor of our house.  This is something I’d thought about before but hadn’t ever had time to actually do so I trundled Matilda upstairs and positioned her in front of the opened window.

Better if the hawk had been sitting on a different branch, but the possibilities are, indeed, quite good:

  

And were I better at in-flight shots, this new shooting angle could prove fruitful:

  

As the Coop launched, it headed across the backyards towards ours.  The grey gloom and my inexperience didn’t allow any of the shots I attempted to be of use but what was both frightening and wondrous was to clearly hear the hawk come crashing through our trees and then the sound of a flock of pigeons in frantic flight, followed by the scrambling and vocal protests of startled squirrels

This meant only one thing.  The hawk had come by for its Thanksgiving meal.

I padded downstairs with Matilda as fast as the doorways, slant ceiling in the upstairs hall, and my feet could carry me and made a beeline to the back patio door.  Indeed, the hawk was there with most of its back to the house and beneath it was … was? … was something that looked very much like the back end or at least the tail of a black-phase grey squirrel!

Thoughts flashed like lighnting and included serious injury to the hawk by the squirrel (unlike other raptors like the red tail hawk, Cooper’s squeeze their prey to death and squirrels can squirm and twist with great strength and inflict deadly damage with teeth and nails, which is why Cooper’s mainly prey on birds) and visions of having to care for an injured adult squirrel.  They didn’t even really register, there was only enough for recognition of the situation to immediately snap on my internal protective switch.  So, reflexively, I burst out the patio door and yelled, “Hey!” at the top of my lungs.

The world stood still as the Coop paused in puzzlement, distracted from its instinctive hunting focus, and the remaining squirrels in the yard scattered at top speed for the safety of anything above the ground.  It finally dawned on the Coop to get out of possible danger, too, and as it loosened its grip on its prey and began to lift itself into flight, a pigeon shot up from the ground and flew away in frantic fear and panic.

I was relieved that the pigeon could fly and fly so well.  I was then mortified to realize, too late, that the Coop would probably not now get to eat this day.  On Thanksgiving, no less.

And as a photographer, I’d blown a prime shot of a wild predator.

A big, squishy, and very uncomfortable ball of guilt promptly splatted on my shoulders.  I suppose that hawks and other predators who live in human-populated areas are accustomed to the NIMBY (“Not In My Backyard”) nature of most people.  Certainly, the hawks here eat well; there is no lack of birdseed-fattened pigeons and other birds for the Coops in particular.  I silently apologized to the gods, shouldered Matilda, and went to see if I could spot the Coop as it tried to figure out what it was going to do next, for it hadn’t flown too far off.

As it turns out, the Coop returned to the big maple tree in the yard next door in very short order.  Apparently not seeing where its unexpectedly-lost prey had headed, it appeared to be looking to see if it was instead still in our yard.  I was able to get close enough to where it sat on one of the large, clear-sight-lined branches and get a good shot:

  

I wish the light had been better since this is a very beautiful adult.  But considering the circumstances, I’m simply grateful to have had any opportunity since, really, it isn’t fair to have been able to take this shot at all.

“How good a day can it be when it begins with your hand shoved up a turkey’s butt?”
(yours truly)

  

I try to live a life of thankfulness; grateful for not only the Big Good Things that come into my life, but also the myriad Small Good Things that are, in the end, part and parcel of this human existence.  But while I hold appreciation for a day set aside solely to give thanks, being who I am, at the same time I cannot help but see the irony.  The suffering of 45 million turkeys raised only to be killed for this day, the tradition of stuffing them and then ourselves with the intention of creating little more than an after-dinner stupor so as to be properly shored up for the insanity of Black Friday Christmas shopping more symbolic of everything wrong with our society than symbolic of gratefulness for blessings both great and small that are continually woven through our lives.

And so this morning, feeling more than ever the added pressure of personal matters that have splintered my family as well as the frightening news from Mumbai, India, where reside both coworkers and a daily photo group member, I awoke in a rather subdued, if not downright cranky mood.  The weather has finally and seemingly gleefully gripped November’s gloom tightly with both hands and while it’s not raining – or sleeting or snowing – on the Thanksgiving Day parade, it’s certainly doing little to welcome a weary heart to another new day. 

For the furballs in residence and those living free, it’s just another day.  And it is from them that I will take my cue and focus on the Small Good Things, letting them fill my basket until my smile returns.  One Small Good Thing was found in reaping the benefit of patience this week.  The majority of the truckloads of pumpkins brought in on Halloween night went into what was intended to be our own harvest-of-pumpkins garden that had fallen unexpected victim to some sort of blight and so since late summer had sat empty and forelorn.  Pumpkins and squirrels make for hilarious photo ops, and I suppose that in a way it’s almost cheating to create a stage set of sorts, but we’ve all gotta eat and, by gods, a rounded diet is a healthy diet so for the seasonal-eating squirrels, if I can give them pumpkins, I will give them pumpkins.

It’s taken a while for the squirrels to get into them, though.  Until the temperature drops and maintains a consistent chill both night and day they continue to mainly forage and bury, wisely leaving most of the nutritious seeds safe and secure in their natural container.  But eventually opening day arrives, and I grab Matilda and go out back to have some annual fun.

These fall pumpkin shots are always bursting with color and when we received a short but wet, ground-covering snowstorm a few days ago it lent a unique and brighter dimension. 

 

The pine squirrels have been very loudly out in force, and their tiny size allows them to easily dart in and out of the opened pumpkins.  Their lightning-speed darting, however, makes it difficult to get a good shot unless they momentarily focus their wee minds on actually gathering the seeds instead of fending off their larger competition,  both real and more often imagined.  In bad late afternoon light early this week I watched as three of them were having a late supper in the pumpkin bed, but as soon as I brought out Matilda, every single one of them took off and never returned.  I was disappointed but determined, so kept an eye out for them and finally was able to catch one of them in the act:

 

 

As I write this, everyone has started getting into the act and yesterday’s daily was of Titan in action.  The boy has grown up to be one fine specimen of a fox squirrel, and he’s certainly eating well!

 

Being (allegedly) on vacation this week, I was able to make the requisite mad dashes outside when the ‘hood hawks made their daily hunting rounds.  Unlike the brightness of the color on the ground, shooting raptors against the gloomy grey sky continues to prove more practice than productive, but when both the Cooper’s hawk and the red tail hawk showed up within a few hours of one another, it made for very exciting and very fun afternoon. 

The Coop appeared first and it was “stick-picking” time from the back patio, aiming three doors down.  It’s distance from my vantage point allowed for a wider f-stop, and the shallow depth-of-field resulted in not-too-shabby a capture, especially considering the lack of light.

 

The red tail was a hungrier and a far less-cooperative subject.  I became a hunter hunting a hunter and ended up following it clear to the end of our block trying to get just one “ok” shot to record its visit.  Every time it would land, I’d hurry over to what seemed like a decent position but by the time I set down the tripod and quickly began to focus, it would head off to another tree.  So I’d pick up and move again.  And again.  And again.

You get the picture.  This is the only half-way decent one I got:

 

But life’s much more about the journey than the destination so today I’m thankful that I have such opportunities in my life.