As it continues cooling down outside, I know that winter is just around the corner. The colder it gets, the more I will be longing to go south in an attempt to escape the cold, but I know like so many others, I must stay put. I know that I must attempt to make the best of whatever the weather gives me. The colder it gets, the more I will want to stay in the library that I have built for myself and read, but I will need to continue to go out to attempt to photograph wildlife.
Most of the time, I am taking pictures of wildlife around the neighborhood that I live in. Over the past few weeks as I have walked around the neighborhood, I have seen a few things like the barred owls, a green heron, a blue heron, and a groundhog.
The day that I saw the green heron, I had been photographing an owl when one of my neighbors who had been out walking her dog came over to me and said that she just saw the green heron. I then pointed out the owl to her and she decided to go home to grab her camera. By the time she got back, the owl had flown off, so she came over to where she had seen the green heron which was where I had moved to. She soon realized that she had forgotten a memory card for her camera, and I felt bad because I didn’t have a spare with me to offer her.
As I have mentioned in my blog about the barred owls, they seem to be the most popular wildlife in the neighborhood. They are one of the few things people talk to me about when they see me walking around the neighborhood with my camera. I am always impressed by how well they blend into their environment and how silent they are when they fly. I know that I must have walked past them many times without realizing it. There have been a couple of times where I was lucky that I heard their call behind me shortly after walking past them and I was able to go back to see them.
When I see the green herons, I always think back to one of the earlier times that I had seen one of these amazing birds. I watched as that green heron was trying to catch fish. Eventually, it was successful, but the fish had fishing line coming out of its mouth. I presume that there was also a fishing hook in the fish as well. It still upsets me to think about that as it is not good for the fish, any other wildlife that might eat the fish, or the environment. I hope that whomever left the fish like that will learn to be more responsible. It seems like people often forget that every action or lack thereof has an effect on the environment, the plants, and the wildlife. We can all choose to either take care of the only planet all known life can survive on or not. I always hope that people will make the right choice and I feel bad in the instances the wrong choice is made.
One morning as I walked my dog recently, we noticed a blue heron. We quickly ran back to the house to grab my camera. When I got back to the pond, I was scared that it had left because there was someone on the dock with a dog when I was walking up. I was happy to see that it was still there. After some time of watching the heron where I saw it catch a fish as well as what appears to be a turtle, it decided to fly away. I always find the pictures of the blue herons in flight to be interesting as it helps you to see the size of the bird. While you know that they are big as they sit at the side of a pond/lake or are perched in a tree, they have an impressive wingspan.
One of the times that I caught a glimpse of the groundhog this year, it appeared to have a baby with it. It is always nice to see them. I sometimes worry about them given that they live in an area where I have seen many hawks and sometimes the owls as well, but I know that the hawks and owls are just doing what they have evolved to do and need to do to survive.
