My Happy Place

A green heron stalks its prey.  I love these little guys.

There are few things that beat a day in the swamp.  The only thing that could have made this day better is if I hadn't listened to the "weatherman", who predicted cloudy, cloudy, cloudy skies.  There was no mention of sun whatsoever.  Therefore, I didn't bring a hat or sunblock.  Why lug around extra gear, if you don't have to.  I know.  I know.  At my advanced age, I should know better.  I'm just too darned trusting.

You can stop laughing, Jen.

I'm feeling a little ill, but looking at the pics of my wonderful swamp critters makes me feel better. 

Btw, these were taken in a swamp in High Point State Park in New Jersey.

A green heron preens.

Green heron

A female grackle sits on her nest.  Must have gotten a late start, because the eggs don't seem to have hatched, yet.

A mama hooded merganser and her chicks.  I couldn't get very close to these guys.

Am I the only one who likes this photo?

Every year at Christmas I give certain family members and friends a photo book filled with images from my previous year's adventures.  As said friends or family members turn each page, my commentary usually goes something like this, "Ooh that's one of my favorites......That's one of my favorites.......That's really one of my favorites."

So basically, every photo is pretty much one of my favorites.  Otherwise, I suppose, it wouldn't be in the book.  However, if you put a gun to my head and said, "Choose or die," I would have to pick the above photo.  The repro on Blogger really doesn't do it justice, but if you click on the link below it, it will take you to the photo on my website.  That's a much better representation.

I'm not certain that others love this photo as much as I do.  My attachment to it may have to do with the circumstances in my life at the time.  One day I was on my way home from work and was stopped in traffic, when my car was slammed from behind.  I won't go into all the exciting details of what happened or what I went through.  Suffice to say, it really screwed up my back.  The pain became worse and worse as the days went by until I was barely able to walk.

A couple weeks later, we happened to get one of those late fall snowstorms.  It was a heavy, wet snow that stuck to everything.  It was gorgeous.  I'm going to try to not say anything rude about people who don't like the snow, but ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FREAKING MIND?  You're nuts, cuckoo, looney, one brick short of a full load.

Oops.  Sorry.  I tried.  Okay, not really.

Hmmm.  Where was I?  Oh yeah, snow.  I love snow, and I wasn't going to allow a little excruciating pain stop me.  It was only a year earlier that I had decided to begin building a nature and wildlife portfolio, so it was, basically, get the hell out of my way pain.  I'm on a mission.  Plus, it was so beautiful.

I threw my gear into the car and headed out.  I'm not really sure why I picked this particular spot to stop.  However, as I pulled my car over it immediately became evident that it was not the best place to park, and I decided to find another spot.  Mother nature had other ideas.  My wheels spun, and I rocked her back and forth but the car made no progress.

Now, it would have been blatantly obvious to anyone who passed that I was stuck and, as luck would have it, a snow plow came slowly ambling along.  I continued to spin the wheels and rock back and forth, so that Mr. snow plow driver would see that I was having trouble and would, hopefully, come to my aid.  But do you think that *bleep*ing [expletive deleted] would stop?  No, the *bleep*ing [expletive deleted] continued on his merry way like the *bleep*ing [expletive deleted] that he is.  He even stopped briefly right in front me, just to taunt me, I'm sure.

*bleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep* you!  Okay, deep breaths.

I finally just said, "Screw it.  I'm already stuck, so I may as well just get the pictures and deal with the car later."

 I threw on my backpack and dragged myself across the road.  As I started walking into the woods with my back screaming at me, all I could think was, "This is not a good idea."  But that's never stopped me before.

Fortunately, the scene above was only about 50 ft. in.  When I saw it, I stopped immediately and was in awe.  It was so quiet and peaceful and beautiful.  And for just one moment I forgot about my pain. 

Ummmmmm.  The End.

Whadda you lookin' at?

This was one of those amusing moments in time in which I wish someone had been videotaping the scene.  I had been running errands all day and wasn't planning on heading into the woods, but something kept telling me to go.  Bad things happen, when I don't listen to the voices in my head, so I headed out to one of my favorite swamps in High Point State Park.  In order to see the swamp, you have to actually be in the swamp.  It is surrounded by very thick growth, most of which is thorny bushes.  So I donned my chest waders and headed in.

After shooting for a couple of hours, I started hearing what sounded like people walking near the outskirts of the swamp.  I don't really like people, so I kept really quiet in the hope that whoever it was would just keep walkin' and leave me the hell alone.  But then I started thinking, what if it isn't people.  What if it's a bear.  And what if the bear decides to come into the swamp where I'm sitting.  I wouldn't know it was a bear until we were nose to nose.

Not to worry.  The sound finally faded into the distance and I continued the task at hand--sitting in the muck in the hope of seeing something cool, which I did.  My logo, which is at the top of this page, came from a photo that I took that evening.

Finally, it was time to go and I worked my way out of the swamp.  I was walking along with my head down, because it's very rocky there, when that voice in my head told me to look up.  There was a sudden rush of happy excitement and holy shit wrapped into one.  Standing maybe 50 feet away was a big mama bear and her two cubs. 

The happy excitement part of my brain told me to start taking pictures.  However, the holy shit part of my brain took over, and I backed away slowly until I reached a big, fat tree.  At the same time, mama bear and cubs were making their way slowly to their own big, fat tree.  We all hid behind our respective big, fat trees and all at once poked our heads out to look at one another.

Unfortunately, my camera settings weren't ideal, so the photo isn't technically well done.  But it was such a great moment, I love looking at it.

This was my very first bear encounter, and I think it went relatively well, save for the bad photography.  My next encounter wouldn't go quite as smoothly.  Maybe I'll tell you about it one day.