Oh yes, oh yes, another holiday has come around, and hopefully you are totally unprepared for this one, because it’s Fuck Foresight Day, the day when we discover (hopefully, except, well, you know what I mean) that we didn’t think about consequences when we should’ve. If you’re on top of things running behind like you should be, you have no plans to celebrate this and are caught totally off guard: no gas in the car right before you have to run out in a hurry, discovering that that really was the last roll of toilet paper, guests coming over with no clean dishes in the house (and if you’re the type to have special dishes for guests, you’re completely out of line with the day, you commie.) It needs to be noted that this holiday has no fixed schedule and is not determined in advance – no one is even sure who’s responsible for it.
In proper manner, I went out this morning and shot 87 frames before realizing that today is going to be a little busy, and the next few days may add a buttload of pics to the sorting folder – which already has 1800+ photos awaiting my attention. Plus another post, that is not this one. I shouldn’t even be typing this, so go me.
Anyway, while I’m here, I’ll compound the error and really get into the spirit of things. It’s been a little while since I’ve been checking out the neighborhood pond, and with clear skies following two days of dreck from Tropical Storm Ophelia, I figured I’d see what might show itself. There wasn’t much – except a hugely cooperative green heron (Butorides virescens.)
Helpfully, this little guy jumped up onto the branches here from its spot down on the weeds on the water, where it may have remained unnoticed by me because of the bank dropoff there. This was about ten meters off, which is nice, so I froze except for my shutter finger and began firing off frames, This was not the notably undersized green heron that I’d spotted there before, which I was hoping to find so naturally it wasn’t going to happen today. But this heron was helpful enough to turn its head for different profiles and lighting during this, and I regretted not having anything to reward it with – gotta start carrying a pocketful of minnows.
The heron advanced up the branch a little, obscuring its position slightly, but was kind enough to allow me to take a few steps for a better vantage – slowly, casually – without getting spooked. I wasn’t in ideal position to capture this yawn, but you gotta love the tongue.
I’ve pointed this out before, but it’s been a while so it’s okay. Just note the bright spot to the lower right of the eye here, where the eye itself, or what we think of it anyway, is in shadow, but the convex curve of the cornea catches the light from the side and focuses it onto the face of the heron, a nice indication of how far the eyes stick out beyond the skull, While I imagine light like this affects vision to some extent – similar conditions decrease contrast in the camera at least – such ocular anatomy allows the heron a very wide field of view, even down underneath its chin; sneaking up on one is virtually impossible, and I imagine the fish find it hard to escape too. I have anouther image from the session that illustrates this even better.
Not done with being cooperative, the heron popped down from its branch onto the shore, even closer to me than before – this didn’t seem to make sense, but perhaps it was trying to get back down to its hunting area in the lake weeds. Still, we get a nice look at the momentarily raised crest and the eye from behind now, where we can actually see the pupil twice – straight through, and distorted in the cornea. Like I said, cooperative.
Anyway, enjoy the holiday, and by that I mean, make disgusted noises while you kick yourself, but enjoy doing that.