“I know no subject more elevating, more amazing, more ready to the poetical enthusiasm, the philosophical reflection, and the moral sentiment than the works of nature. Where can we meet such variety, such beauty, such magnificence?”
(James Thomson)
What with the addition of the bazooka lens to Matilda, the weekend couldn’t come soon enough for me. We decided to get up before dawn and head over to the nearby nature preserve right after sunrise to give her – and me – the first real field workout.
It was a little disappointing to awaken and find the day dawning overcast and grey. There was a big storm cell brewing slightly northwest of us, but odds were we weren’t going to see any rain, and even if we did it wasn’t going to blow down very soon so, any shooting time being better than none, we armed our Selves with the cameras and requisite coffee and headed out.
It was quite quiet when we arrived, typical for an early Saturday summer morning in the ‘burbs. After two weeks of listening to the endless whining of saws and the sensibility-jarring hammering of an addition being put onto the house next door, it felt so good to be walking somewhere at least relatively wild and peaceful.
The first thing I noticed moving was goldfinches. I hoisted Matilda – ready, aim, fire! A quick check of the results and yes, the weight of this new gear is going to take some getting used to, even with VR on the lens. Reposition and try again. Since this is practice time, I’m happy with a decent shot of the wee, cheeky yellow featherball.
We wandered over near the river and parked where the old woods meets the small, native prairie, the better to see the big birds should they decide to come flying overhead. But it remained still, only the angry fussing of a pair of squirrels echoing from the other side of the river interrupting the endless chirping of the songbirds.
It wasn’t long before another, decidedly nasty interruption appeared. Some older men with their dogs running free came wandering up the path that crosses the prairie; we’d seen them there before and this time I stood up and pointed my enormous lens in their direction. I fired off several shots and it was enough to send them wandering back the way they’d came, leaving the nature preserve to the wildlife for which it is intended.
As if on cue, a native song sparrow promptly took up a usual perch on some nearby deadfall. This meant it was time to work on my “stick-picking”; getting clear focus on a subject tucked away between branches and twigs. A few snaps of the shutter and the little singer was mine.
All this time, the thunderstorm had continued to roll closer and the sky to the east began to darken, flashes of lightning at last breaking through. The clouds softened and blurred into fantastic curves that made the sky look as if it someone had laid an enormous grey, silver-blue, and white quilt overhead. But the rain remained far away from where we stood.
And so did everything else. It was time to start heading back towards the car but we walked slowly, looking and listening for just one more photo op. Somewhat ahead of Bob, I’d almost reached the main drive when I heard him call to me, softly but urgently. I turned around inquiringly and he pointed in the direction we were headed. I looked but saw only the smallest singlet trees where the main drive first touches the edge of the prairie. One of the trees stood out more than usual, brown and dead and I loudly whispered this back to him.
I thought the poor was going to have apoplexy when he insisted I look again. And so it was that when my eyes refocused properly I experienced one of those, “Holy-Everything-With-Whipped-Cream-And-A-Cherry-On-Top” moments”:
The camera shutters beat out their staccato tattoos for as long as this magnificent old boy stayed in view. At some point I’d managed to turn off the VR on the lens, so I was as equally pleased as I was enormously upset out in the field to find that some of them had turned out so well.
Of course, Old Buck is our secret now. While I would love to use him as an excuse to berate the City in which the nature preserve is located as reason to more closely monitor the selfish wankers who use it as some sort of dog park, at the same time I fear the jealous, egotistical greed of those who would see this beauty as a grace belonging only on their walls and so make up an excuse to “relocate” him.
We’re going to return tomorrow. A few other shots from today can be seen HERE.
Oh he’s beautiful, PJ! Thank you so much for posting this!
On a side note…my bats were back yesterday, but of course they were gone by the time I got my camera out 🙁