Diario de warrenlayberry

Last night, as I navigated weird shadowy dream landscapes, I kept seeing small birds and mammals on the ground right ahead of me. I would reach for a camera, but by the time my clumsy dream fingers brought it up for a shot they'd be gone. This happened three or four times.

Today I was out on Esquimalt's Songhees Walkway with my camera, testing out a new GPS unit that clips into the hot shoe to record location data. As I stepped off the path and onto a small rocky outcrop, something a few metres out—a seal maybe or an otter—submerged, scattering brilliant afternoon sunlight. I decided to sit and wait, camera ready, but whatever it was never resurfaced, at least not where I could see.

When I gave up and stood, I noticed a strange pile of moon snail shells behind me on the shore. I walked over and snapped a shot. The dead nowhere near as elusive as the living.

https://inaturalist.ca/observations/137093734

Today I was walking along a residential street, DSLR around my neck, just casually looking around for potential observations on my way home. It was mid-morning, and I felt good about some of the things I'd captured. I was scanning the flowers of a garden I was passing for bees when I sensed something in my peripheral vision. I turned and saw a Cooper's hawk (at least I think it was a Cooper's hawk) sitting on a fence post about chest high and no more than thirty feet in front of me. Would have been the best shot of the day. Hell, it would have been the best shot of the day from twice the distance, but I wasn't at twice the distance. More's the pity. Had I been thinking, I would have inched my hand slowly to the camera and tried to snap a shot with the camera down in front of me. As it was I tried to lift the camera and the thing took flight.
It was a terrific siting, and who knows, I might get another shot at it; I was all of ten minutes from home. Still, I just wish I had captured it this morning.