I’ve remarked before that the way to see owls is to go out without either binoculars or camera. Ignoring my own advice, my friend Elaine Bergstrom and I went out to Seminary Woods, fully armed with cameras, to listen to the wind in the trees and search for owls. And sure enough, we found one!
But nature is not so easily fooled, and it turned out that Elaine’s camera couldn’t zoom in on the owl, and my camera had no card in it. At least, though, I could use it as a spotting scope, and pretty soon a group of three other hopeful owl-watchers had joined us and we were all marveling over the owl. He really did show off, secure in the knowledge that the trio who’d joined us had a camera with dead batteries.
Of course, it didn’t take too long for us to realize that we could put other peoples’ memory chips into my camera. So among us all, we outwitted a bird and got some fine photographs. To wit:
owl as totoro
sun on the ears
sleepy owl
he realizes he is observed
and will no longer dignify us with his attention
