Bird Photography Not So Fast & Easy, Akshully

A snug nest of brown baby birds, probably robins, cuddle together high up in a trident of branches belonging to what you could call either a large bush or a small tree. Devon took my little camera, the only one I would reluctantly let him touch, scrambled up in the neighboring bushes and came back with pictures - and video! - of the darling wee creatures.

Of course the video had a frightening soundtrack of Devon saying, "Here birdie, here birdie birdie," with a terrible sweetness. Run birdie, run!

Anything a little boy can do with a point-and-shoot camera, his mommy with a large zoom lens can do better.

Right?

Although I am NOT fat, there is no denying that 4 trips through the pregnancy machine left me with a few, a very very very few more pounds than I had before. They accompanied me up the feeble branches toward the Nest of Destiny. They weighed down the feeble branches so I could just barely peek along level with the top of the Nest of Destiny. Clearly my dumb old bent perch was not going to serve my needs.

Now, it is very hard, even for a Long John Sliver like Devon to walk and squeeze along through our foresty thicket, so it seemed much more logical to try and make my way through the bush-tops till I got to a better branch. Luckily I had a good handhold when I came to that conclusion.

There I hung, suspended between earth and sky, holding fast to those branches while one foot dangled a couple feet off the ground and the other hooked acrobatically across a chest-level branch. No matter how much wiggling and squirming I did, I couldn't touch the ground or free my other leg whilst holding onto those nice, firm branches.

After a long, thoughtful pause, there were really no options but to let go, carefully so as to avoid smashing my camera. My foot touched the ground, barely, and the other leg...let's just say it was even higher. Good thing I'm so flexible, since if I wasn't before, I sure was after.

The new position was truly an improvement, though it brought with it a whole new set of challenges. How to lower my knee below ear level on one side, how to remove the large stick from my ear on the other side, and which order to do them.

Being rather like Billy and the Bees, I still had to try the other set of branches, only climbing up from the ground instead of mincing nobly across the leafy canopy. And boy, was I too short. I could see the nest, way off above me, with the tip of one tiny beak poking out. Not exactly JJ Audubon fare.

With no handhold, that ignominious descent was even more ungainly than the first. At some expense to all pride and dignity, my beautiful camera was yet again and still undamaged. As I hung there in the bushes (or small trees) I thought to myself, "How glad I am that no one is here with a camera but me!"

Until the next adventure,

Noni Beth