Work of Art

This gray fox is a true work of art. Look at the white color lining the inside of the back legs and the black around the eyes. The fur on the muzzle and the neck is beautiful too. As a matter of fact, it is hard to decide what part of him is most beautiful.

Have you heard people say that you should not see foxes out and about in the daytime? Don't believe them. This one was trotting along at 9:45 am and he is not the first one I have seen at this time of day.

He was probably hunting for food to feed the family as both male and female foxes share in that responsibility.

Foxes aren't picky about what they eat either. They will eat small mammals, birds, eggs, insects, vegetables or fruit. Their food pyramid must look pretty odd.

This fox stood still for about a minute and a half. It is very unusual to get to see one for that long as they are very wary and have lightning fast reflexes. A fox once spun around and raced away so fast that I heard his feet hitting the road. If you weighed 8 lbs and were running in your bare feet how fast might you have to run for someone to hear your feet strike the ground?

Soon a little breeze came along, his nose quivered once and he was gone. If I am ever in this situation again I am going to mew like a little lost baby mammal and see if he can be lured a little closer.

Foxes live about five years. It would be cool if this is the same fox I photographed with my first camera in 2006.

Darling

I have mentioned Darling in two previous posts and so I thought you might like to see a photo of him.

Here he is with Little Kitty.

Like a lot of guys Darling has very firm ideas about what is manly and what is not. He will not wear pink and he will not drink fruity little cocktails. He likes dogs and horses. Manly animals, those are.

So who would have guessed that he would LOVE this cat? When I was a kid growing up in the south real men did not eat quiche and they most certainly did not like cats.

I have known Darling for eight years now. I never knew until this year that he liked cats. He likes this one so much that when our daughter moved out with the Labrador he said that he didn't want another dog because it might make Little Kitty nervous.

And the feeling is mutual. Little Kitty loves him. We are talking about a cat that is so shy that I worry if she ever gets outside I won't be able to retrieve her. She is so timid our pet sitter has only laid eyes on her once. She is so elusive that I have to trap her in the laundry room to put her flea preventive on her. But here she is with her "hands" all over Darling.

And one more weird thing. Darling cooks very spicy food. Little Kitty loves his cooking.

fawn surprise

One afternoon I saw a doe resting under an apple tree in my front yard. I thought to myself, "This would be a good weekend to get a wildlife photo."

So early Sunday morning I crawled out of bed before sunup. After gulping down a cup of coffee, showering in unscented soap and donning camouflage clothing I headed out with my camera hoping to photograph some wildlife. After spending a long time seated under a tree I was hungry. I dug an energy bar out of my pocket and started eating. While eating I happened to glance over my shoulder and there about thirty-five feet away was a little fawn standing up to stretch her legs! I had to put the zoom lens to my eye in order to convince myself that I wasn't seeing things. She had been lying there at the base of a tree all along and would have remained quite invisible had she not stood up. In my haste to photograph her I let the energy bar drop to the ground. This sent the local ant population into fits of joy.

The fawn may have sensed that she was not alone because she stood watching and listening with those oversized ears for quite some time before she lay back down. Lucky for me she was looking in the wrong direction.

She may have remained in her hiding place until her mother came to retrieve her but a truck drove by. I thought it was interesting that she jumped up and ran across the road after the truck passed. She probably ran a very short way and lay down again to hide.

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.