You Should See the Ones That Get Away!

really terrible picture of a Common Yellowthroat

I LOVE taking pictures.
love it LOVE IT.
LOVE.
IT.

Really.

I know when it started.  On the the farm, as a kid,  Mom let me take pictures of her flowers with the Polaroid. Then, later, when Polaroids were almost a thing of the past (unlike now, when they are trendy again), Dad gave me his, and I took a couple of pictures of some woods and fall foliage near our house in town.  One semi-blurry picture of greens, reds and orange did it for me.  I kept that picture in a scrapbook and enjoyed looking at it for years. Even though I continued to really suck (sorry) at taking pictures for a really long time (half of the pictures I took from my only trip to Europe during college had my finger in them, or were blurry, or had no focal point or were mostly of someone else's back taking the same picture I wanted to be taking....you get the idea), I still WANTED so much to show others the beauties I perceived in my world.

When I got an iPhone, I took a lot of flower pictures, mostly.  I have never been great at people pictures, and because of a long story I won't go into here, for a long time, I told myself that pictures of family members weren't really all that important, especially, especially compared to spending time with those family members themselves.  Then, several years later, my wonderful husband did something that changed my world.

One Christmas, I opened a mysterious package. By mysterious I mean I am often pretty good at guessing what I might be getting for Christmas. Comes from a past of shaking, measuring, sneakily unwrapping corners (None of which I do anymore. Believe me. Really). But this present totally caught me by surprise. A shiny new Nikon Coolpix P510...probably the best point-and-shoot ever made, big attached zoom, lots of fun features...I could go on.

I started crying.  It was like a homecoming I never expected.  I just kept saying, as a way to explain my tears, "I never knew I wanted it."  But apparently, I did.

I have no idea how many pictures I have taken with this camera...a hundred thousand, maybe.  I've stored 3,312 (as of right this moment) of my favorites on Flickr, others on Facebook and Imgur (I'm not an Instagram or Snapchat type of girl). Its zoom lens makes a funny whirring sound, the result of being dropped a couple of times.  But it still serves me well.  It is my constant car buddy.  Every day that I come home with pictures to download feels little like opening that present one more time (See what you unleashed, Bob?).

But.

In spite of ALL those pictures, almost every day, there are the ones that get away.

Last week, TWO black bears on two separate roads had the nerve to run across the road in front of my car without pausing and posing for a picture to commemorate the experience for both of us.  I've had the same thing happen many times with coyotes and wolves, a fox, numerous raccoons, gray squirrels, grouse, turkeys (ESPECIALLY TURKEYS), pheasants, and those darned white crows down the road a piece. Certain birds tease me with glimpses as I drive, calling with their little siren songs (Mr. Common Yellowthroat, you KNOW who you are!), but never showing themselves long enough for me to get a shot....even when I'm driving with my window open, camera ready in one hand...talk about distracted driving!

Anyway.

I LOVE IT!

Every day and every day and every day is an all day treasure hunt for me.  Just today, there was a discussion on Facebook of the famous three white crows of the Bruce Crossing area, and I chimed in, sharing the pics (not super ones) that I have taken of them so far.  This led me to look for them as I headed toward Ewen to pick Jordan up after driver's ed this afternoon. AND I SAW ONE.  Right there between the Jousma and Gem Hill roads.  Taunting me alongside the road.  I pulled over safely, took aim, and he was (of course) GONE, deep into the trees on the south side of the road.

Story of my life.

But only most of the time.

The rest of the time, I've had time to do THIS <<<<click if you want to see some pics, since this post isn't going to contain any more added the usual way (I know that's a tease, but you know, that's the subject of this post, in a way).

Hope you don't mind.

Happy First Day of Summer!!!

(6/21/2016 Edit)  I have been feeling bad about not including my usual plethora of pictures to this post, even though it was supposed to be pictures I DIDN'T take.  Sooo....here's pics of a little one who DIDN'T get away today:

I don't know if it's a trick of the light, but his eyes are BLUE

I didn't get the shot where he turned his head a and looked at me with those big eyes before sauntering down the road to his mama