{"id":105,"date":"2008-11-28T14:16:38","date_gmt":"2008-11-28T18:16:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogshevik.com\/garneredimages\/?p=105"},"modified":"2008-11-28T14:16:38","modified_gmt":"2008-11-28T18:16:38","slug":"a-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/?p=105","title":{"rendered":"A Mistake"},"content":{"rendered":"

“I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming that I have never made one.”
\n(James Gordon Bennett)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n

Yesterday’s blog was part of the day’s multi-tasking.\u00a0 As I wrote it\u00a0I was also going back and forth to take photographs in the backyard.\u00a0 While my descriptions of our November gloom were true,\u00a0the morning had eventually blessed us with a little sunshine and\u00a0I 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\u00a0checking out the day’s possibilities from the big tree 3 doors down.<\/p>\n

As always, the furballs never disappoint my photogrpher’s eyes.\u00a0 The sunshine was obviously welcomed by them, too, though my worrisome little girl was slower than some to get going:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I love the old wooden fence that divides the backyards on the west side of our tiny lot.\u00a0 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:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Of course, by now, most of the furballs no longer pay much attention to me or Matilda.\u00a0 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:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 But I write today not to\u00a0express my appreciation for the furballs, but instead to ponder the day’s juxtaposition of reason to give thanks\u00a0from the perspective of the Cooper’s hawk.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Its position was not conducive to anything more than a positive-ID shot from the backyard, nor worth a walk up the street,\u00a0but 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Better if\u00a0the hawk had\u00a0been sitting on a different branch, but the possibilities are, indeed, quite good:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

And were I better at in-flight shots, this new shooting angle\u00a0could prove fruitful:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

As the Coop launched,\u00a0it headed across the backyards towards ours.\u00a0 The grey gloom and my inexperience didn’t allow any of the shots I attempted to be of\u00a0use but what was both frightening and wondrous was to clearly hear the hawk\u00a0come crashing\u00a0through our trees and then the sound of a flock of pigeons in frantic flight, followed by the scrambling and vocal protests of startled squirrels<\/p>\n

This meant only one thing.\u00a0\u00a0The hawk\u00a0had come by for its Thanksgiving meal.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 Indeed, the hawk was there with most of its back to\u00a0the house\u00a0and 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!<\/em><\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 They didn’t even really register,\u00a0there was only\u00a0enough for\u00a0recognition of the situation to\u00a0immediately snap on my internal protective switch.\u00a0\u00a0So, reflexively, I burst out the patio door and yelled, “Hey!” at the top of my lungs.<\/p>\n

The world stood still as the Coop paused in puzzlement, distracted from its instinctive hunting focus,\u00a0and the remaining squirrels in the yard scattered at top speed for the safety of anything above the ground.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

I was relieved that the pigeon could fly and fly so well.\u00a0\u00a0I was then mortified to realize, too late,\u00a0that the Coop would probably not now get to eat this day.\u00a0 On Thanksgiving, no less.<\/p>\n

And as a photographer, I’d blown a prime shot of a wild predator.<\/p>\n

A big, squishy, and very uncomfortable\u00a0ball of guilt promptly\u00a0splatted on my shoulders.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Certainly, the hawks here eat well; there is no lack of birdseed-fattened pigeons and other birds for the Coops in particular.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

As it turns out, the Coop returned to the big maple tree in the yard next door in very short order.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

I wish the light had been better since this is a very beautiful adult.\u00a0 But considering the circumstances, I’m simply grateful to have had any opportunity since, really, it isn’t fair to\u00a0have been able to take this shot at all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“I have made mistakes but I have never made the mistake of claiming that I have never made one.” (James Gordon Bennett) \u00a0\u00a0 Yesterday’s blog was part of the day’s multi-tasking.\u00a0 As I wrote it\u00a0I was also going back and forth to take photographs in the backyard.\u00a0 While my descriptions of our November gloom were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/105\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}