Well, as a quick update, I am still down with the Las Cruces Crud. I am telling you, this is the most craptastic and nastiest hellspawn I’ve come down with since I can remember. General rule..Bri don’t get sick. At this point now at the mercy of the doctor who basically told me to keep down, suck it up and it should pass. Tapping my watch and noting “time’s a tickin’ on my ultra training schedule” didn’t win me any of his sympathy. He gets three more days and I’m out the door ‘nuf said. The good news is I am finally getting transferred over to the new computer. Still have some clean up to do, but this is officially the first post from the new Alien. Note, disappointed I have yet to locate the “auto-generate a post button” on this watts sucker. I’ll keep looking, but at least for now, stuck with me.
If you recall in my last post, I mentioned it was part one of two and eluded to the possibility our little yellow-eyed feathered friend might have been on the lookout for more formidable predators having easily dispensed with an intruding Sparrow. Time to reveal what led us to that conclusion. This is the first time I’ve ever used the WP image compare widget – apologies if it doesn’t work correctly on your monitors.
Hit the jump to read more about our dark encounter with another resident of Anahuac National Wildlife Refuge.
Just in case the slider didn’t work, here is a static image of the heavily worked over image. I’ve read countless articles on RAW vs JPG, many discussion with Brad, my brother Ron and several other photographers about the different formats. I’ve come to two conclusion. First, the opinions are about as passionate and diverse as the proper way to breakdown and clean your handgun. Second, from day 1 I’ve been on Team RAW and I’m the designated franchise player ha. Definitely do not want to try and change anyone’s opinion, all this is just reference to the fact it saved my ass in what turned out to be one amazing encounter.
The sun was dropping fast by the time we finished up chatting with the Burrowing Owl. You probably noticed the light was coming nearly horizontal over the Owl’s eyes in some of those shots. Took some extra time to tin a few Short-Eared owls hunting the nearby fields before calling it a day and heading back to the campground.
Nearly back to the autoloop merge, a shape moved across the road about 100 feet from the Jeep. For those not familiar with Anahuac, the roads into the deeper part of the park are all rock with plenty of holes likely commissioned by the local chiropractors – this shadowy shape obviously knew it was not in immediate danger as it gingerly made it to the other side. Grabbed The Beast, yelled our single code word for “stop the car immediately so Bri can jump out immediately” and well, jumped out of the car. I find trust and understanding to be very important in a successful marriage hehehe.
I figured it would scurry off as soon as it got to the other side – by then, pretty sure it was a Bobcat and my experience with those has been usually two to three head/side shots and everything else just a series of ever shrinking butts. To my surprise it made it into the grass, turned and stared at me. I may be wrong, but I swear I heard Linda hit the door locks…just saying.
There I knelt in the road doing everything I could to not be greeted by total blackness on the back of the LCD screen shot after shot. I was literally trying every trick I knew to suck in whatever stray rays of light were bouncing off the overhead clouds. You have to be amazed at what the human eye can discern on its own. After staring at me for a minute or two, the Bobcat turned and looked back the way it had come and hunched lower to the ground. It was definitely intent on something having thoroughly assessed what danger we posed.
Then it got lower and seemed to be staring even more intent. All of sudden a cub emerged from the weeds and quick made its way over to what I assumed now was its mother. My excitement quickly turned to disappointment as I was still only getting dark smudges in the tin aaarrrggghhhh! Once the cub had successfully made it across, the two came back out into the middle of the road, took a few bounds further away and, to my total surprise, both STOPPED and looked back at me. They seemed pleased I stayed put (oops, apologies for the anthropomorphism). Then they both turned and looked back to the other side of the road.
Hmmm, that seemed a familiar posturing. The mother started kicking her back feet while the cub turned its focus back on me. By this time I was kicking myself I didn’t grab Linda’s D850 instead, which is fantastic in low light. Oh well, the best camera is the one you have with you. Any gains in the exposure were being quickly erased by the darkening skies.
It seems the mother was getting fidgety. Any encounter that includes a humans is probably stressful enough, but this had gone on for at least 15 minutes by now. The cub gave up watching me and copied its mother’s posture.
….and then the mystery was revealed! A second cub appeared out of the weeds and gingerly sauntered towards the rest of its family. Kids these days hehehe.
Hands down the most incredible experience I have ever had with these elusive Cats. The mother gave me one last glance before heading safely off with her two cubs. A threat not to follow, a quick nod of appreciation for keeping my distance or perhaps a passing question “have you seen any tasty Burrowing Owls about?”. We have no way of knowing, but my mind was immediately focused on the Owl we had recently left – thankfully, the opposite direction from their heading.
I definitely have more admiration for the Burrowing Owl. Clearly these are threats (as well as others I am sure) that can threaten its existence on a daily basis. Ironic that a potential solution is right at their fingertips, but I am sure using the advantages of flight can also bring with it an entirely different set of dangers. No arguing, top of the food chain is the place to be.
Eventually, the three disappeared back into the dense vegetation of the fields and we went on our way…AFTER getting Linda to unlock the car doors.. I KNEW IT. As excited as I was about witnessing this all play out, the disappointment on the tins was bothering me the rest of the trip. There was as chance they could be improved.. but it would require some heaving manipulation in the digital darkroom. As you can see from these shots I absolutely lucked out – also now a big fan of the new LR AI Denoise feature for ISOs in the stratosphere.
As I turned off the lights in the image lab, I notice a black fedora perched on my camera and an evil laugh rang out.. “The Sensor knows”.
Life Intrigued 