{"id":56,"date":"2008-06-21T14:11:25","date_gmt":"2008-06-21T18:11:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogshevik.com\/garneredimages\/?p=56"},"modified":"2008-06-21T14:11:25","modified_gmt":"2008-06-21T18:11:25","slug":"a-buck-for-breakfast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/?p=56","title":{"rendered":"A Buck For Breakfast"},"content":{"rendered":"

“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?”
\n(James Thomson)<\/em><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

What with the addition of\u00a0the bazooka lens to Matilda, the weekend couldn’t come soon enough for me.\u00a0 We decided to get up before dawn and head over to the nearby nature preserve right after sunrise to give her – and me –\u00a0the first\u00a0real field workout.<\/p>\n

It was a little disappointing to\u00a0awaken and find the day dawning overcast and grey.\u00a0 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\u00a0very soon so, any shooting time being better than none, we armed our Selves with the cameras and\u00a0requisite coffee and headed out.<\/p>\n

It was quite quiet when we arrived, typical for an early Saturday summer morning in the ‘burbs.\u00a0 After two weeks of listening to the endless whining of saws and the sensibility-jarring hammering\u00a0of an addition being put onto the house next door, it felt so good to be walking somewhere at least relatively wild and peaceful.<\/p>\n

The first thing I noticed moving was goldfinches.\u00a0 I hoisted Matilda – ready, aim, fire!\u00a0 A quick check of the results and yes, the weight of this new gear\u00a0is going to take some getting used to, even with VR on the lens.\u00a0 Reposition and try again.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Since this is practice time,\u00a0I’m happy with a decent shot of the wee, cheeky yellow featherball.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

We wandered over near the river and parked where the old woods\u00a0meets the small, native\u00a0prairie, the better to see the big birds should they decide to come flying overhead.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

It wasn’t long before another, decidedly nasty interruption appeared.\u00a0 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.\u00a0\u00a0I fired off several shots and\u00a0it was enough to send them wandering back the way they’d came, leaving the nature preserve to the wildlife for which it is intended.<\/p>\n

As if on cue, a native song sparrow promptly took up\u00a0a usual perch on some nearby deadfall.\u00a0 This meant it was time to work on my “stick-picking”;\u00a0getting clear focus on a subject tucked away between branches and twigs.\u00a0 A few snaps of the shutter and\u00a0the little singer\u00a0was mine.\u00a0<\/p>\n

All this time, the thunderstorm had continued to roll closer and the sky to the east began to darken,\u00a0 flashes of lightning\u00a0at last breaking\u00a0through.\u00a0 The clouds softened and blurred into fantastic curves that\u00a0made the sky look as if it\u00a0someone had\u00a0laid an enormous grey, silver-blue, and white quilt overhead. \u00a0But the rain remained far away from where we stood.\u00a0<\/p>\n

And so did everything else.\u00a0 It was time to start heading back towards the car\u00a0but we walked slowly, looking and listening for just one more photo op.\u00a0\u00a0Somewhat ahead of Bob, I’d almost reached the main drive when I heard him call to me, softly but urgently.\u00a0 I turned around inquiringly and he\u00a0pointed in the direction we were headed.\u00a0 I looked but saw only the smallest singlet trees\u00a0where the main drive first touches the edge of the prairie.\u00a0 One of the trees stood out more than usual, brown and\u00a0dead and I\u00a0loudly whispered this back to him.<\/p>\n

I thought\u00a0the poor\u00a0was going to have apoplexy when he insisted I look again.\u00a0 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”:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The camera shutters beat out their staccato tattoos for as long as this\u00a0magnificent old boy stayed in view.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

Of course, Old Buck is our secret now.\u00a0 While I would love to use him as an excuse to berate the City in which the nature preserve is located as reason to\u00a0more closely monitor\u00a0the 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\u00a0a grace belonging\u00a0only on\u00a0their walls and so make up an excuse to “relocate” him.<\/p>\n

We’re going to return tomorrow.\u00a0 A few other shots from today can be seen HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“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) \u00a0 What with the addition of\u00a0the bazooka lens to Matilda, the weekend couldn’t come soon enough for […]<\/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\/56"}],"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=56"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=56"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=56"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/squirreltale.com\/garneredimages\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=56"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}