hidden fawn

Can you see the fawn? She is lying at the base of the tree. Her large ear is pointing up toward your right and looks very red with the sun shining through it, she is looking away from you, and her body extends along the ground further to the right behind some leaves.

The biggest threats to fawns come from coyotes, dogs, bears, and bobcats. We know through research that these animals don't see strictly in black and white, but they also don't see colors nearly as well as we do. Imagine the difficulty her enemies might have seeing her without the aid of color vision.

Now suppose that you are watching her without the magnification of a zoom lens. She would be almost impossible to see, wouldn't she?

Squirrelly

Don't you hate it when you lose stuff? It makes me nuts!

I lost my spare camera battery last week. I don't know how it happened. I charged it fully. I returned the charger to its proper place. The little plastic cover that protects the battery's metal contacts was not on the counter. That meant that after removing the battery from the charger and putting the charger away I had replaced the plastic cover on the battery, and then put the battery.........where?

I retraced my movements over and over again in my mind. I could not for the life of me remember anything past the point where I removed the battery from the charger.

I looked everywhere. The more I looked the more it got on my nerves that I couldn't find it. I made myself late for work one day because I could not stop looking. Then I was grouchy because I couldn't find my battery and because I was running late.

I was sure it could not have left the master bed/bath area. I resolved to tear those rooms apart bit by bit until I found it.

Maybe it had fallen down amongst the clutter on the closet floor. I removed everything from the closet floor and got down on my hands and knees to look. I found some dust bunnies. But no battery.

Maybe I had swept it into a drawer. I emptied out the three most likely drawers. I found a lot of stuff that needed to be thrown away or given away. But no battery.

Honey Bunny even tried to help. He opened some drawers and rumbled around in them a bit. Instead of being appreciative I muttered things like "I already looked there," and "I wouldn't have put it there." H. B. wisely exited the bedroom.

I had recently purchased a new camera bag and I had not moved all of my meager camera gear from the old bag to the new. Maybe this was a clue. I looked in the old and the new bags. Three times. One of the times I used a flashlight to reveal every corner of the black bags. No battery.

After a week of this insanity I went into the new camera bag for a lens. I looked once more for the missing battery. Silly idea. I was obsessed with this problem.

There it was. Right there. I couldn't believe my eyes. I had to touch it before I could accept the fact of its existence.

I think this could be the work of a Leprechaun!

You Lookin' at Me Lookin' at You

Recently I rented a macro lens.

Kitty loved it.

Not because Kitty enjoys macro photography. Kitty enjoys walking slowly around the yard looking at small things. And if this lens gave me a new appreciation for this activity then Kitty was all for it.

Kitty walked with me and weaved back and forth against my legs. When I stopped moving he threw himself on the ground and rolled onto his back begging to be scratched. He peeked into the weeds helping me (he thought) search for tiny living creatures.

Imagine my excitement when I found a Praying Mantis. I looked through my camera's viewfinder. She appeared a bit too small. I needed to move closer. I eased the tripod forward inch by inch. Mustn't frighten the Mantis, right? Carefully, cautiously..........OOPS! Kitty chose this moment to head bump me. The tripod crashed against the green plant, the mantis scooted over to a more protected area, and this is the resulting photo.

Dinner Companion

We first became aware that we had a nocturnal visitor in April. We arrived home one night to see glowing eyes reflecting in our headlights.

Our dinner guest was watching us as well. He knew that we sat on the porch each night until just after dark, then went into the house to eat supper at around 9:00.

On a few nights we would return to the porch after supper and interrupt his meal. We could not see him in the dark but we could hear the feeder creaking eerily as it swung back and forth like the porch swing in "To Kill a Mockingbird."

I set up a camera and flash in such a way that it could be operated from inside the house. After supper I reminded Sweetheart not to go out on the porch until I could trip the camera.

There was our dinner companion. Right on time at 9:28 pm. After I snapped his portrait he brazenly continued eating until we opened the back door.

With any luck this raccoon should have a long and happy life. We live quite a distance from the road and there aren't any dogs to bother him.