This is why I need a new camera
posted in Alaska, Fall, Illnesses, Livestock and Pets, OmegaDad, OmegaDotter, Wildlife |
For the past few years, OmegaDad has raved to me about “his” sandhill cranes showing up in the spring and fall, his special viewing place, ooh-ing and aahhh-ing about being able to go out during his (short) lunch hour, drive a few blocks, and eat his lunch while communing with nature, aka the cranes, and how pretty they were.
Today, he called me from work. “I’ve got a very flat tire.” Instantly, Super OmegaMom springs into action: faster than a speeding bullet, she whizzes through the garage, grabs the battery-powered air pump, leaps into the car, and–
…waits for OmegaDotter, who had no school today, to collect all her worldly goods and chattels in preparation for an overnight with A., her best bud.
At which point, Super OmegaMom grabs the Halloween artwork done by OmegaDotter for donation to A.’s Halloween decorations, flips the back seats down, rolls out the bicycle, manhandles the bicycle up into the car, schleps the dotter and all her worldly goods and chattels off to A.’s house…
…and then goes to rescue OmegaDad.
As I delivered the air pump, I suggested we go visit the dawg at the hospital…
Oh! Didn’t I mention this?! One night home, and the dawg was once again throwing up everything, we couldn’t get any meds to stay down, we were worried yesterday morning, we called the vet, we took the dawg back to the vet’s, we got a call from the vet mid-day, we drove back to the vet’s office under a low, black cloud of gloom, anticipating that we were going to be told that he needed to be put down…Only to find out, once we were there, that the vets had made a mistake during the first surgery, and they wanted to do a third surgery to correct it. The good news was that the dawg was not needing to be put down. The further good news was that they were going to do the surgery for free. The bad news was…well, three surgeries in a week is an awful lot, and the vet wasn’t sure that this would do the trick for our poor puppy.
But, anyway, the dawg is recuperating from his third surgery, and I suggested we go visit the dawg, which we did. And then OmegaDad was hungry for lunch, so we grabbed a burger for him from DQ. And while we were there, he said, “Let’s take a drive!”
“Turn right here. Turn left here. Drive straight here. Turn here. Slow down. Slow down. Just beyond those trees–can you see them?”
See them?! Holy moly, there were some of the prettiest birds I’ve seen in a long time, and they were right by the road. We could practically have reached out and touched them. They had red crests on top of their heads, perched on long, graceful necks. Their bodies were mottled brown and cream from one angle, an iridescent blue-ish from another angle. They were just…beautiful.
And I didn’t have my camera.
After taking the husband back to work, I drove home (12 miles), grabbed the camera, and drove back (another 12 miles) just so I could get pictures of these beauties.
Of course, by the time I got there, they had moved much farther back into the field, away from the edge of the road. This meant I had to zoom in with my point-and-shoot’s all-of-3x-optical-zoom. Which meant that all I was getting was lousy pictures. I got out of the car, moved into the greenery by the side of the road–
–and the birds very quietly and gracefully moved an equal distance further away from the road. It wasn’t like they were scared, or really noticing at all; it was almost as if it were a force of nature, like gravity or magnetism, except repelling rather than attracting. I move forward, they drift backward.
Bah. The pic at the top of the post is the very best I could manage. I ache to have better pictures of those birds.
Obviously, I need a new camera, one with more oompf. None of this twiddly, pixellated digital zoom, thankyewverramuch. I want some STUDLY OPTICAL ZOOM, dammit! So this is my new quest: cruising CraigsList for a nice used 10x digicam. The dawg has eaten up a lot of our PFD check, but I think I can swing a 2nd-hand good digicam…Just so that next year I can get better pictures of these guys.
