I am in awe of nature. But I don’t always have the patience for it.
I love to watch nature shows on TV. You know, where the brown bear catches a salmon. Or the cheetahs attack the weak wildebeest. Or the dung beetle rolls on, well, a big ball of dung. Or the birds of the Amazon puff up their feathers and perform their mating rituals.
Knowing my luck, I’d travel to Kenya on a wildlife tour to see cheetahs…and this is what I would probably see. Uh, yeah. I would need a T-shirt that says, “I went to Africa and all I got was a photo of grass.”
That further proves my awe of the photographers and camera crews that have the patience to capture all of this wonderfulness to enlighten those of us who will never get the chance to experience–and film–spiders hatching, elephants trekking for new water holes, tiny tree frogs up so close you can see his pupils.
I mean, imagine how long you would have to camp out, with your tripod and camera and open shutter to capture lightning. Especially because, like, we don’t even have lightning where I live. Talk about patience.
I had a teensy little experience the other day to photograph wildlife: a robin feeding her young. I know, nothing jaw-dropping or exotic.
But it touched me, just the same.
My next door neighbor’s waterspout is a perfect place for a nest. The same robin parents come back every year to build a nest. It’s part of our family’s Spring ritual to check out the craftsmanship of nest-building. And then to hear the babies chirping. The parents use our back yard as their grocery store. Where, apparently, worms are on sale.
Oh and did you know that both parents are involved in food shopping, meal preparation, and feeding?
So the other day, I saw the baby birds peeking out with their eyes wide and beaks even wider. Methinks, “Grab the camera with the telephoto lens and transform yourself into wildlife photographer.” Yeah, I actually said that to myself. #dork
I placed my body up against the fence, about 10 feet away from the nest. Close enough to get a good shot. But not close enough to freak out the parents.
I waited. And waited. (I had to pee.) And waited. (Kids were arguing in the cul-de-sac. SHUT UP!) I waited some more.
I waited 18 minutes…which felt like an eternity.
The babies sat there, in their nest, with their beaks open. They, too, were waiting. “Where is my dinner??!!” (I was starting to wonder the same thing as my belly started to grumble.)
Here is what I saw.
Besides learning about bird behavior, methinks I also learned a little more about being patient. And being appreciative. And just being.
