shakespeare, revisited

i walked right past him this time, and never knew he was there. again, perched about 30 feet off the trail, he sat silent in his awesomeness. two women happened to see him and were crouched, taking pictures, oohing and ahhing — thoroughly enjoying their discovery — when i came back up the trail.

hey...wait a minute!! i'm supposed to be the observant one! i don't walk out of my front door without scanning the trees and sky for des oiseaux. i specifically look for owls in the woods when i walk the trails, spending more time looking left, right, and up, than i do focusing on the path in front of me… what's going on here?!?
i feel betrayed.
let down.
mocked.

oh, get over it. he's there now, so swallow your pride and enjoy this time that you were blessed with. again.

i was without camera, so i had a critical decision to make: go get it and capture the moment on a CompactFlash card (but risk him leaving), or stay put and capture it on my grey matter?

the squishy mass of dendrites and axons that fills up the cavity in the top of my head is becoming less reliable with every passing year. that and my skull is lacking a usb port…i'll go get the camera.

20 minutes later, i came back with my camera, and…

there he was, waiting patiently for me.


what took you so long?

the sun was on him when i left to get the camera, but i was a little dismayed to find him wrapped in the cool blanket of a shadow when i got back.

you look vaguely familiar…

a quick turn of my head to look behind me, and i saw that the blanket was only going to get bigger — the sun had fallen behind the trees, trying its best to smile through the spaces in between the many branches, but failing miserably. i faced the owl again, whom i am going to refer to and think of as shakespeare, my pretend pet owl, first encountered over two months ago on the opposite side of the trail. is it possible that this was the same owl? i'm going to ask you to indulge my little fantasy of believing that it was.

as before, i shot plenty of pictures, the first of which i used my on-camera flash. but a rash of guilt quickly spread over me, and i turned off the flash, feeling that i just couldn't subject him to that again. in lieu of good lighting, i 'pulled up some asphalt and had a seat'. we talked. about what he was doing there on that branch so close to the trail, about where his friends were, about what he was going to have for dinner. but mostly we talked about why he remained on that branch…in the shadow. i pleaded with him to move to a nice sunny spot still within camera range.


he obliged.

now i shifted into full gear. armed with a fresh battery and an empty memory card, i snapped and snapped and snapped until my finger hurt. on his new perch, he was more alert to things happening around him. the rustle of a leaf on the forest floor, and he looked down. snap, snap, snap! something heard far off in the distance, and he looked to the right. snap, snap! a dry leaf, stirred by a gentle breeze, rattling against its branch at the top of the tree he was in, and he looked up. more snapping. i stayed there with him for a couple of hours, sometimes taking photos, sometimes letting my camera drop to my side and just staring at this wondrous creature, soaking in its intricate beauty, and the fact that i was nearly eye-to-eye with him.

(click the picture for a larger version)

two and a half hours later, he decided that he wanted some company other than me — someone more engaging, someone able to relate to him more on his level…someone with more feathers. he leaned forward, puffed out his chin feathers, and called for companionship in that trademark hooting pattern of his: "who, who, who-WHOo. who who who-whO WHOOoo."

a few seconds later, an answer, higher pitched.

two more calls, two more answers, and he was gone.

(click the picture for a larger version)

i really must learn to pan with the bird as it flies off. (the picture not shown in this sequence is an empty branch, the camera having not moved an inch.)

instantly i scrambled up and gave chase. a light wind noise up and to my right made me turn my head, and intuition made me raise the camera. his friend soared through the canopy of leafless limbs and out over the trail. snap, snap, snap!


i quickened my pace and found them up ahead, each occupying a separate tree. as well as we've come to know each other, i admit with a small degree of shame that i couldn't tell one owl from the other. one was larger than the other, but which of those was shakespeare? (i learned later that the females are larger than the males.) i refrained from calling out his name; i'm afraid my fantasy is only shared by one of us.

i snapped a few more pictures, but my time with him had come to a close; my owl had given me his undivided attention for over two hours, and now it was time for him to bid me adieu. he had owls to hang out with, things to catch for dinner, and much hooting to attend to.

and i had a CompactFlash card full of images to go download.

the ever-elusive red-tailed

man, those things are skittish.

hawk: perched at the very end of the very top branch of a very tall tree.
me: perched on top of the sidewalk, the tallest part of me reaching a mere 6'1" above the surface of the cement, a good 30 feet below mr. nervous nelson.

i don't know...maybe it was the eye contact. maybe it was the change in approach speed (i was walking up to the tree, then stopped). maybe it was raising my large, black rocket launcher and pointing it at him. or maybe he was trying to look for lunch and didn't need the unnecessary distraction.

i just wanted a picture. that's all.

instead, i got a chase, playing follow the leader from tree to tree; him making the effortless transition to a new territory, and probably enjoying a few laughs at my expense while i trudged through puddles down long stretches of sidewalk, finally arriving at the new destination.

stop. steady. slow movements. raise camera. fly away.

wait...what? no! that wasn't part of the sequence! come back here!

back and forth like this, three times. he ditched me on the third pass.

i hung my head and took defeat like a (hu)man, foiled again by the crafty ways of nature.

i left for southwest park, hoping to catch some jays, downys, butter butts, chickadees, kinglets, cardinals, sparrows, and nuthatches. found 'em all, but the day was very overcast, so my best shots were the ones i took next to the feeders, with flash, standing about 15–20 feet away. evidently my field craft skills leave something to be desired. thank God for feeders.



all of my non-feeder shots were at 800 ISO, 1/640 shutter, and f/5–6.3. they didn't turn out so well.




it was getting late and starting to drizzle again, so i headed home. back the way i came. past the area where the red-tailed gave me the slip. past the tree he was perched in when i first saw him. approaching the tree he glided to the first time i scared him off, and...there he was. sitting right at the top. dominating the scene. and i swear he was laughing at me, saying, "alright, big guy...you gonna stop now? polly want a picture? is that fancy camera of yours waterproof? hahahahaha!" yes, i swear i actually heard that.

i saluted him, acknowledging a job well done, and drove on through the rain.

happy thanksgiving

we feed the feral siamese that calls our neighborhood — and the woods surrounding it — home. we have been for almost a year now. at first it was, "awww…look at the cute little cat. she looks hungry." so we'd stick a little bowl of food out for her. of course, our back porch became her favorite spot, and now she enjoys three hearty meals a day out there. she grew on us, with her beautiful coat and color, and her striking blue eyes; we looked forward to her arrival, came to expect her presence at our back door.


then, 4 days ago, she stopped coming around.

we scanned the woods for her cream-colored silhouette; we watched the stump of a large, dead tree that had become her throne, where she would bask in the sun and bathe herself; we consistently eyed the corner of the house, expecting her to slink around the corner at any moment, plop herself down, and wait patiently for her meal; we monitored the back door, turning toward it with so much frequency our necks started to hurt, hoping to see her face pressed up against the glass…

nothing.

our hearts, heavy, surprised at how much we missed our little visitor. there have been a lot of hawks around lately. vultures, too. and let's not forget cars.

we feared the worst.

then, thanksgiving eve.

out of habit, i turned toward the glass door, now coming to expect a backyard devoid of furry animal friends, but too set in my new ritual of hope not to look…and there she was. like a ghost. silent, her face pressed against the transparent barrier; patient, as if saying, "no, no…don't get up. finish what you're doing. i can wait."

so today i'm thankful that our "unofficially adopted outdoor pet" is safe, and has resumed her daily routine at "restau de le dugfresh."

i'm thankful for God and for the seemingly impossible likelihood that He continues to love a sinner like me.

i'm thankful for my family, and for our health.

i'm thankful that i have a job, and can still pay (mostly) all the bills.

and i'm thankful for birds. and flying squirrels. and cats and dogs and dragonflies and caterpillars. racoons, foxes, coyotes, and possums, bats, mayflies, assassin bugs, northern water snakes, deer, boxelders, towering oak trees, ferns, rain…for nature and this wonderfully complex and bewilderingly beautiful planet that circles the sun at just the right distance away.

happy thanksgiving, readers. (although it's only one four so far, i'm still thankful for you.) i hope your day was filled with joy, comfort, love, family and friends, and appreciation for all the little things we can so often take for granted.