They Walk Among Us

We feel blessed to be able to live in a rural setting. No city hustle and bustle here. We are pretty much surrounded by woods through which we've maintained a trail where our dogs can run freely as we walk along with them.

We've often wondered what sort of wildlife might be found out here. A year ago I received a couple of trail cams which I installed to help answer our curiosity. Over the months, as I took the camera cards out to see what was captured on them, we saw a variety of wildlife - coyotes, skunks, raccoons, deer, etc - as well as people and dogs.

Then as I reviewed one of the cards recently, I got a large surprise, captured on one of the cams only 200 yards behind the house ... have a look:

Although we've lived here for 15 years, and we'd heard rumours of sightings in the area, this was our first actual evidence of their presence. We do pay a little more attention on our daily walks now !

Too Close for Comfort !

I've been AWOL (or MIA) for the past 10 months and I have a raft of excuses for not being active here - but I won't list any. I have wrestled with those good intentions of posting once again, and I finally landed here. It was not due to stepping back from photography - I have many folders of 'unprocessed film' that need to see the light of day (for me anyway).

Late on an evening about 3 weeks ago when I was in Florida, I heard the distant rumble of thunder - not at all an unusual event at that time of year. As I heard continued rumbling I thought I'd step out to see if there was a photographic opportunity. Indeed, the sky was being continually lit up but it appeared that the storm was quite some way off (based on the time between lightning and thunder).

I would normally use a tripod to photograph lightning but had left it behind up north. With the camera braced against my chest, and with breath held, I managed to get a few shots of the spectacular light show:

I continued to shoot while also counting seconds between flashes and peals of thunder and figured that with at least 12 seconds between them, the storm was still at a distance. That theory clearly was disproved when the very next flash lit up my surroundings so brilliantly that I thought it had removed me from this world. I could literally feel the electricity in the air. Upon realizing that I could still move, I hastily retreated inside on what I will admit were shaky legs. Since I had the shutter open when the flash occurred I can share my near-death experience:

The exposure times were similar in all 3 shots but obviously the flash proximity and intensity was not. Lesson learned (I think) for next time.