With A Face Only A Mother Would Love

Not too long ago, Tori_Z sent me a set of pictures to "sort out" as they say in the land of Wales, and she impressed me in more than one way. She was trying to take some photographs of birds in her backyard. I know from my own experience with a simple point-and-shoot camera this is no trivial undertaking.

To add to that challenge, throw in not actually being able to see her subjects and check her camera's viewfinder for aim and focus and you can begin to see why I might be impressed with her.

First off, was her sheer determination not to let "the hand life dealt her" keep her from doing something she wanted to do - probably in the face of near overwhelming skepticism - just leaves me awed. I know firsthand how easy it would be to let my own severe hearing impairment "handicap" keep me from trying and/or doing things. Tori doesn't realize it, but she's keeping me "honest" and helping me buckle down and try things I might attempt to dodge - and I'm very grateful for that.

It took Tori a little "doing", but her results speak for themselves - See for yourself right here.

Thus inspired, I decided to take my own point-and-shoot camera into the field - the Heebner Green Space Park to be precise and see if I could get some bird pictures too. I took pictures of rabbits, deer, and looking around discretely before whispering, squirrels and Wrinkled Black Beatlejuicean Worms but the various birds continued to elude me.

Robins, bluebirds, sparrows, doves, cardinals, crows, blue jays, crackles and even the humdrum pigeons managed to play coy and shutter shy. I was about to pack it in as the sky darkened from an approaching thunderstorm when I noticed some Turkey Buzzards sitting on a power line tower.


I was reminded of the song we used to sing in Boy Scouts, "Here We Sit Like Birds In the Wilderness" and attempted to get closer to make up for the point-and-shoot camera's inherent lack of a real light gathering zoom lens.

The Turkey Buzzards were edgy though, every step I took closer made them fidgety and they threatened to fly off. The one that was highest up the pole seemed to be the main lookout so I kept an eye on him as I slowly moved closer.


Pushing my camera's limited zoom to its optical maximum in the poor light, I sort of managed to capture this bird's shall we say not-so-attractive appearance.


Could I creep closer? Alarmed, several of the birds took to the air and those that remained had ruffled feathers.


As unappealing as they might look standing around - their soaring grace in the air is unmatched by the more eye catching garden and song birds.

Doubly awed - once by Tori and once by this bird's effortless ability on wing - I walked back to my car - completely contented by my efforts - even if they didn't include any Bluebirds.