As anyone who knows me can tell you, I am a firm believer in the power of chocolate, my go-to bar being Dove dark chocolate. Love it, though I'm less a believer in the sketchy messages on the wrapper. Today's was "Get lost on purpose." I don't need to do that on purpose.
Every year after Halloween, my focus shifts from dark chocolate to the seasonal peppermint bark. The other day I finished my last bag of it and now I must wait ten months until it reappears. I love peppermint bark. I limit myself to two pieces a day and that's a sacrifice because I think I could live on peppermint bark and that alone if given the opportunity.
How much is too much? How dare you even think that question?
This morning at the Wetlands as I made my way to the pond where I had last seen the white pelicans, I tried to prepare myself for the day when they would not be there. Like my favorite chocolate, the white pelicans are seasonal and one day they will just vanish.
"How many pictures of white pelicans do I really need?" I asked myself.
Apparently I need about a thousand more pictures because, at it turns out, the pelicans were still there today, still in large numbers, still parading about and making several large school marching bands look rather pitiful in their formations.
I pulled over, got out of the car and started taking pictures. But much like I had yesterday and the day before, after I took so many pictures--my favorite today being of a solitary pelican holding court--I put the camera down and just watched.
I was surrounded by other photographers who moved silently through the grass, the only noise the whir of the camera as they took pictures. The Savannah sparrows grew so used to me there that I was surprised when I finally moved and half a dozen of them scattered from around my feet and flew away.
The white pelicans weren't the only thing I watched for today. I paused along the road outside the Wetlands' entrance looking for that mysterious Smooth-billed Ani. There were no cars this morning and I don't know if that means that people found the bird yesterday or that they had given up. I hope they haven't given up.
Another car pulled up alongside of me and a man asked me if I had seen the Ani. He pronounced it differently than the woman yesterday, with a flat "a" as if he were asking about the orphan Annie.
"No," I told him, "but I thought I would try."
"I'll try and let you know if I see it," he said as he drove away and I wondered what he meant. I didn't know the man, had never seen him before. He was going one way, I was going the other. How would he let me know? Or was it simply that birders have some psychic/ESP connection that maybe I was about to discover.
Looking for the Smooth-billed Ani (which kind of resembles a grackle from a distance) I must have taken fifty pictures of grackles and blackbirds just in case.
No luck, though the grackle can be a truly beautiful bird in its own right.
I am amazed nearly every day by how often I find a bird, not by sight, but by sound, the flapping of wings, the Belted kingfisher's cry as it dives for its kill. The osprey tends to hover, almost in slow motion, above the water before they dive, but the kingfisher, as I discovered today, with its small body and over-sized head, beats its wings furiously, almost like a hummingbird, a blur in the sky.
It's not something that just one picture can convey.
The other day, I got out of the car purely because of a strange sound. Something was moving through the tall weeds, making a slurping, eating sound. I barely saw it and only later when I pulled the picture up on my computer was I able to see the neck lines of an American bittern and the fins of a fish. I'm still not sure what exactly the picture shows. I'm making a guess based on its extreme shyness, but who knew it sounded so slobbery when it ate?
This now is the season of birds, of white pelicans and all sorts of migrating species. For a while there will be times when I am so overloaded with the many wonders God shows me each day that it will be too much and I will put down the camera and take a deep breath and tell myself I don't need a thousand pictures, all I need is a moment.
Every year after Halloween, my focus shifts from dark chocolate to the seasonal peppermint bark. The other day I finished my last bag of it and now I must wait ten months until it reappears. I love peppermint bark. I limit myself to two pieces a day and that's a sacrifice because I think I could live on peppermint bark and that alone if given the opportunity.
How much is too much? How dare you even think that question?
This morning at the Wetlands as I made my way to the pond where I had last seen the white pelicans, I tried to prepare myself for the day when they would not be there. Like my favorite chocolate, the white pelicans are seasonal and one day they will just vanish.
"How many pictures of white pelicans do I really need?" I asked myself.
Apparently I need about a thousand more pictures because, at it turns out, the pelicans were still there today, still in large numbers, still parading about and making several large school marching bands look rather pitiful in their formations.
I pulled over, got out of the car and started taking pictures. But much like I had yesterday and the day before, after I took so many pictures--my favorite today being of a solitary pelican holding court--I put the camera down and just watched.
I was surrounded by other photographers who moved silently through the grass, the only noise the whir of the camera as they took pictures. The Savannah sparrows grew so used to me there that I was surprised when I finally moved and half a dozen of them scattered from around my feet and flew away.
The white pelicans weren't the only thing I watched for today. I paused along the road outside the Wetlands' entrance looking for that mysterious Smooth-billed Ani. There were no cars this morning and I don't know if that means that people found the bird yesterday or that they had given up. I hope they haven't given up.
Another car pulled up alongside of me and a man asked me if I had seen the Ani. He pronounced it differently than the woman yesterday, with a flat "a" as if he were asking about the orphan Annie.
"No," I told him, "but I thought I would try."
"I'll try and let you know if I see it," he said as he drove away and I wondered what he meant. I didn't know the man, had never seen him before. He was going one way, I was going the other. How would he let me know? Or was it simply that birders have some psychic/ESP connection that maybe I was about to discover.
Looking for the Smooth-billed Ani (which kind of resembles a grackle from a distance) I must have taken fifty pictures of grackles and blackbirds just in case.
No luck, though the grackle can be a truly beautiful bird in its own right.
I am amazed nearly every day by how often I find a bird, not by sight, but by sound, the flapping of wings, the Belted kingfisher's cry as it dives for its kill. The osprey tends to hover, almost in slow motion, above the water before they dive, but the kingfisher, as I discovered today, with its small body and over-sized head, beats its wings furiously, almost like a hummingbird, a blur in the sky.
The other day, I got out of the car purely because of a strange sound. Something was moving through the tall weeds, making a slurping, eating sound. I barely saw it and only later when I pulled the picture up on my computer was I able to see the neck lines of an American bittern and the fins of a fish. I'm still not sure what exactly the picture shows. I'm making a guess based on its extreme shyness, but who knew it sounded so slobbery when it ate?
This now is the season of birds, of white pelicans and all sorts of migrating species. For a while there will be times when I am so overloaded with the many wonders God shows me each day that it will be too much and I will put down the camera and take a deep breath and tell myself I don't need a thousand pictures, all I need is a moment.
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