Backyard Wildlife

Alright, so I wanted to do something a little different this week.  If you’ve been hanging around POTW for a while, you know I’m not a wildlife shooter.  Not because I don’t like wildlife as a subject, but simply because I just don’t have the lens necessary to do it.  I do, however, LOVE wildlife and so I wanted to share some images I’ve captured lately.  Now… what does this have to do with fall and fall colors?  Well, not much, EXCEPT, this year I helped lead the Fall Photography Workshop at Tremont and one of the activities we did with everyone was photograph some rescue birds… which was REALLY cool.  So cool, in fact, I decided to get my camera out and shoot as well (and a HUGE thank you to Jane Palmer for letting me borrow your lens!).

As I mentioned, the screech owl and barn owl are both rescue birds and were on tethers (the barn owl was actually sitting on a person’s hand… inside a glove of course!), and lets be honest, that’s the only way I’d ever get these shots because I just NEVER see owls in wild for some reason… and the whole lens thing.  The were such beautiful birds, and very fun subjects.  The raccoon, on the other hand, is a sad situation.  I saw this guy sitting in my neighbors yard so I went over, camera in hand, to investigate.  I was thinking something must be wrong with it, as it didn’t move at all as I approached it, and after photographing it I realized it was sick (it started having a seizure while we were watching it).  We called the vet and animal control and both stated that there are some nasty diseases going around right now, and animal control ended up coming by and picking this poor fella up.

–Dan Thompson