Here’s my photography tale…
One summer 3 or 4 years ago we found ourselves spending a little more time than usual at our cabin in northern MN. It was probably because of the flooded primary residence in ND now that I think about it.
Anyway, we often see interesting wildlife…a “nesting pair” of bald eagles return year after year down the road from us, where there are no cabins, and we often see them fly right over the house. I learned to recognize their call quite a few years ago, and I look up if I hear it. Always a good summer to my mind if I see an eagle, or a pileated woodpecker (more rare – only 2 years have I seen them, though in other areas, other lakes, they are more common). Mute swans land on the lake around Thanksgiving as they migrate south.
Perhaps a wolf ! while driving the highways. Or even occasionally a black bear. Bears - far less often than our early years there. Because of how heavily populated and built up the lake has become I guess. But 20 years ago, driving to the little store for milk in the early evening my d-i-l and I saw a mother black bear come out of one ditch and head across the road to the other. I stopped of course…little lake road, no traffic behind…and 1, then 2, oops, 3 little ones came up out of the ditch, traipsing behind her. We looked at each other, awestruck. Just then a 4th cub came up on the road and ran after the rest.
I digress.
So that summer my hub says, I think I’ll buy a game camera. Set it up in the yard aiming toward the lake and see if it captures anything overnight and while we’re gone for a few days, etc.
We did get pictures of a pesky dog that made its way through the yard a few times, a raccoon, the neighbors looking for their cat, I guess. A cat. The lawn care guy. Deer. Cat again.
So when we left for the winter, I said to hubby, shouldn’t we take the camera with us to Arizona…that would be interesting. I had seen a lynx cross right in front of our small patio one year and yet had never seen the famous javelin that are supposed to be so prevalent.
So we did and that’s when the fun began –set up on the patio, and all at night: coyote, deer, spotted skunk, rabbit, 2 coatimundi !! The rabbit lives under a large agave cactus on our property, I believe, and was the probable reason for repeated visits by the coyote. I always felt some relief when the next day’s shot would show the little rabbit still there, coming over to drink from a potted plant’s drain dish.
Javelina finally. Also they are called peccary. A little herd of 4 or 5.
Almost every night for the 2 weeks we were there, we got a picture of something.
“Talk between women friends is always therapy...”
― Jayne Anne Phillips 
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