Shoot at Owen Park

t was a dark and a stormy morning. Oh no, someone else has tried a line like that. 

On impulse I decided to I decided to get up before the sun had opened it’s yellow eye. After grabbing my camera kit, I jumped into the van.

The world was filled with a patchwork mosaic fog. Blue filled my sky. Then all of a sudden white fog restricted my view. A little later, the sky was blue again...

I made my way to the Audubon walk at Owen park. After all, I have a pretty nice camera and no projects going on at the moment. My doctors say I need to exercise more and I like walking around lakes. 

The group gathered at the parking lights and finally broke into 2 smaller ones. It seems every time someone saw some little movement we had to stop and hope we saw any bird of any kind. I saw a lot of dark shadows and flitting shapes. A couple of times, I even saw an identifiable bird, all LBJs(Little Brown Jobs). But they all were too far for my 300 mm lens to capture.

Perhaps I am not deep enough in the world of ornithology to appreciate what was brought before my lens. Size does matter when taking a picture, though. Size and distance from subject… I found it curious though when we happened upon some water fowl no one even batted an eye. 

I don't think I am jumping the gun when I say that I want to take pictures of birds that are large enough to fill my frame, and the truth is, if the group is large and loud the sound and presence will scare even LBJs off. I want to capture larger subjects, say a heron or seagull, even a raptor. 

I ended up letting my eye get distracted by other things, spiders and spider webs, a bed tree silhouetted between a pale blue sky and darker water.

Just a floating spider.

O, web a web she weaved!

These are the only photos of the day which I feel are even 

close enough to post here on my lowly blog.

While we were walking the sky and fog began to lift and we could see further. Yet still nothing really grabbed my lens. 

I began to notice the people who were around me. Some were fishing, others exercising and I remembered my doctors advise about my needs. So I saw started looking at the faces of those around me. Most were so engrossed in their running or power walking that they were taking for granted the beauty of nature around them.

This thought brought me back to the nature lovers whom I started was with. They were so engrossed in looking at their chosen subject…had they forgotten about the other beauties of nature in which they were surrounded?

This brought me up short, who am I to judge, especially in my frustration, other people's level of participation? 

In the end though, I think I may have gotten an image which is good enough for this lowly blog.

What do you think?

olc