Blundering upon wildlife
Sep. 19th, 2003 11:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
catsittingstillI woke up early this morning and couldn't go back to sleep, so I decided that something was trying to tell me to go canoing again. I have this theory that my best chance to see wildlife around Panther Creek is to go very early in the morning,
The sun was just rising as I turned onto Highway 11-E. I drove through the long strip mall that is Jefferson City's highway-face, passed the city limits sign for Morristown (the local towns look strangely lopsided on the map, stretched out long and thin along the major roads), and turned left onto Panther Creek Road.
I reached the lake before the sun did.
I took the canoe off the car by myself, this time, since the Ranger station doesn't open till 8:00am. The new canoe bag made setting up quick and easy; the gunwale pads went into the bag, the life jacket, scuba booties and kneeling pad came out of the bag, and away I went. I took a chance this time and took the camera along, sealed up in a couple of zip-lock bags.
The morning light was just hitting the lake by the time I pushed off.
There was a little bit of wind, so I sat near the middle of the canoe and used the Omer stroke a lot. It's still a bit of a struggle to keep a constant heading and make progress against the wind, but it's not the constant battle it used to be before I knew how to deal with it. Practice helps.
I puttered in and out around the lakeshore for a while, then headed up Panther Creek inlet. I was hoping to get some good pictures of wildlife, as long as I was risking the camera, and I've seen a great blue heron and some smaller heron (a green heron, maybe) in that area several times, as well as kingfishers. This meant a stretch of paddling downwind (which isn't as much easier as you'd think; with more speed you have to be more careful about rocks and submerged logs, and a tail wind also tries to mess with a canoe's heading), and "uplight"--facing into the sun. When I reached the inlet I found the great blue heron stalking around. This was when I discovered that human attention is a lot like a zoom lens: it makes the object of interest look closer and bigger than it is. Unfortunately my camera doesn't have a zoom lens. The heron is standing at the water's edge to the left of the flooded tree.
I tried to get closer to the heron while my canoe tried to climb a tree to get out of the wind. Eventually things got too exciting for the heron, who flapped slowly away around the water's edge.
I then turned back to carry out my clever plan, paddling gently along the lake shore with the sun at my back to light the wildlife properly. In the process I harassed a smaller heron--the one I think is either a green heron or a black crowned night heron--trying to get a good picture of it while it walked nervously away along the shore. Its cryptic coloration works surprisingly well, and despite several tries I never got a picture good enough to be worth including.
Meanwhile I worked my way toward the tree the great blue heron had roosted in, the camera's wrist strap clenched in my teeth like a pirate's knife, pausing at intervals to take pictures.
Whenever I quit paddling the wind turned the canoe sideways and slid it downwind, so I would snap my picture quickly and go back to controlling the boat. Eventually the heron started shifting nervously from foot to foot and took to the air before I could get close enough to get a good shot, darn it.
By this time I had been out for a couple of hours and was starting to feel guilty about harassing the wildlife. It was time to head home. I took a picture of my canoe when I landed--the blue bag is the laundry bag I'm now using to hold gear. You can see the canoe wants to head out again.
I put the canoe back on the car by myself, but in the process I pulled something in my lower back. I don't think it's serious but all my instincts are telling me to take it easy, so I spent the rest of the day lolling around the house, including doing some sleeping.
The sun was just rising as I turned onto Highway 11-E. I drove through the long strip mall that is Jefferson City's highway-face, passed the city limits sign for Morristown (the local towns look strangely lopsided on the map, stretched out long and thin along the major roads), and turned left onto Panther Creek Road.
I reached the lake before the sun did.
I took the canoe off the car by myself, this time, since the Ranger station doesn't open till 8:00am. The new canoe bag made setting up quick and easy; the gunwale pads went into the bag, the life jacket, scuba booties and kneeling pad came out of the bag, and away I went. I took a chance this time and took the camera along, sealed up in a couple of zip-lock bags.
The morning light was just hitting the lake by the time I pushed off.
There was a little bit of wind, so I sat near the middle of the canoe and used the Omer stroke a lot. It's still a bit of a struggle to keep a constant heading and make progress against the wind, but it's not the constant battle it used to be before I knew how to deal with it. Practice helps.
I puttered in and out around the lakeshore for a while, then headed up Panther Creek inlet. I was hoping to get some good pictures of wildlife, as long as I was risking the camera, and I've seen a great blue heron and some smaller heron (a green heron, maybe) in that area several times, as well as kingfishers. This meant a stretch of paddling downwind (which isn't as much easier as you'd think; with more speed you have to be more careful about rocks and submerged logs, and a tail wind also tries to mess with a canoe's heading), and "uplight"--facing into the sun. When I reached the inlet I found the great blue heron stalking around. This was when I discovered that human attention is a lot like a zoom lens: it makes the object of interest look closer and bigger than it is. Unfortunately my camera doesn't have a zoom lens. The heron is standing at the water's edge to the left of the flooded tree.
I tried to get closer to the heron while my canoe tried to climb a tree to get out of the wind. Eventually things got too exciting for the heron, who flapped slowly away around the water's edge.
I then turned back to carry out my clever plan, paddling gently along the lake shore with the sun at my back to light the wildlife properly. In the process I harassed a smaller heron--the one I think is either a green heron or a black crowned night heron--trying to get a good picture of it while it walked nervously away along the shore. Its cryptic coloration works surprisingly well, and despite several tries I never got a picture good enough to be worth including.
Meanwhile I worked my way toward the tree the great blue heron had roosted in, the camera's wrist strap clenched in my teeth like a pirate's knife, pausing at intervals to take pictures.
Whenever I quit paddling the wind turned the canoe sideways and slid it downwind, so I would snap my picture quickly and go back to controlling the boat. Eventually the heron started shifting nervously from foot to foot and took to the air before I could get close enough to get a good shot, darn it.
By this time I had been out for a couple of hours and was starting to feel guilty about harassing the wildlife. It was time to head home. I took a picture of my canoe when I landed--the blue bag is the laundry bag I'm now using to hold gear. You can see the canoe wants to head out again.
I put the canoe back on the car by myself, but in the process I pulled something in my lower back. I don't think it's serious but all my instincts are telling me to take it easy, so I spent the rest of the day lolling around the house, including doing some sleeping.
