Stop and smell the roses?
As a wildlife and nature photographer, I’m always amazed at what people are overlooking when they zone out while driving down the road. Maybe there’s too much going on in our hectic lives as we clinch the steering wheel and talk on the cell phone. There’s the kids to think about, work, money and many of the other pressures we feel in today’s fast paced world. Of course, there’s always talk radio with those political pundits telling us what’s wrong with everything and why we can’t do anything about it and that adds frustration to the mix. Whatever the case, if we could just slow down a bit, get our minds in the present tense and shake off the mind clutter, we might see a lot of the beauty passing us by. Now I’m not suggesting that you rubber neck from side to side in the driver’s seat, but using a little peripheral vision can do the trick. If you have passengers they can look for animals and scenery as you scoot down the fast lane and you’ll be amazed how helpful they can be. My father, Win Schendel, always reminds me of how beautiful the mountains look while driving on I25 and how lucky we are in Fort Collins to have such an incredible view.
Last August , driving the road from Fort Collins to Masonville, I was amazed at the people passing me while I was driving the speed limit. Everyone it seemed was in a hurry to get someplace other than where they were. Looking for a great view of Horsetooth rock, I spotted a red tail hawk in an old snag about twenty feet from the pavement. I slowed down, turned around and pulled off on the curb to see if I could get a couple of good pictures. As I’ve said before, when photographing raptors, they’ll fly in a hurry if they spot you, so it’s best to stay in the car, roll your window down, and take your pictures from there.
The feathered creature acted as if I wasn’t there at all. He was bobbing his head back and forth and up and down as though he were a boxer trying to avoid a left hook. Clicking pictures through the telephoto lens made for some interesting stuff, but I couldn’t figure out why he was acting so weird. Then, as I took a minute to review images on the back screen of the camera to make sure everything was sharp, I saw exactly what was going on. Zooming in, I could see that hummingbirds were buzzing and dive bombing the hawk at lightning speed. I hadn’t seen them with my eyes, but the camera, being set at a high shutter speed was capturing the action. Of more than a hundred pictures I took before he flew, I got four pretty awesome shots. During that fifteen minutes not a single speeding driver had stopped or slowed down to see what was going on and I was reminded of how much we all miss of this wonderful world.
