Disappointing

We’ve all seen outstanding wildlife photographs in magazines or as movies and/or videos. What we don’t see are the countless days, hours, weeks or months the photographers spent trying to get those photos and clips.

The wildlife photographers who take still images or film truly wild mammals and birds often spend hour after hour or day after day or week after week waiting for their quarry to appear in front of their lenses – and it may never happen. Most wildlife photographers are quite used to being frustrated or disappointed for a variety of reasons at various times .

For the last six months I’ve often been one of those frustrated folks. It began last fall when we headed for Pennsylvania’s elk range to photograph elk during the rut. When I became interested in the elk, roughly 50 years ago, there were only 50-60 of these majestic animals in the state. Year after year we’ve gone to photograph elk in all seasons and gotten some wonderful photos –

In the last 15 years, both the Pennsylvania Game Commission and Department of Conservation and Natural Resources seem to be using the elk herd (now numbering 1000+) as a cash cow and tourist attraction.

To this naturalist the annual elk hunt seems to give the lie to the concept of a hunt being conducted on “fair chase” principles. And there’s now a multi-million dollar visitor center and tour busses and wagon rides. What about the elk? Well the elk seem to have all but disappeared from their prior haunts; they may well have been driven off by the hordes of tourists – we’ve been driven off as well.

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For a number of years short-eared owls have wintered on what I call “Harrier Hill”, a large area of hayfields, pastures and cropland. Local photographers and some visitors from far away have enjoyed standing on the windy hill in sub-freezing temperatures trying for a few good photos of the owls.

Last winter there were only a few sightings of short-eared owls on the hill – and only two by yours truly.

Why ? To human eyes the habitat hasn’t changed, does it look the same to an owl? The weather may have been a factor, the winter had been colder than recent years and 10 ½ inches of snow fell in one storm during February. Some of the snow had blown off the highest points, some had sublimated and much had settled, voles and mice can move beneath the snow in some degree of safety.

But vole populations are cyclic as are most species of wildlife, gradually rising from a low point over a couple of years until reaching a peak and then suddenly crashing. If the population of voles collapsed, there may well not have been enough food to keep owls in the area.

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It was spring, warm and sunny with the buds swelling on trees overhead and some shrubs already leafing out. I spent two mornings sitting in full camo beside a small stream in the Big Woods hoping for photos of a winter wren or a Louisiana water-thrush or almost anything else that would be interesting. In all those hours, what was the only wildlife that appeared? A gray squirrel, the same species I could have photographed from our kitchen window almost any day – and gotten a better photo at that –

 

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Recently a friend and I went to a site where timber rattlesnakes are known to bask. The day was ideal, warm and sunny, but not too hot for the snakes to be basking on the rocks. How many snakes did we see? One, a garter snake. Oh well, there will be a lot of days that we can try, try, again before the snakes head for their winter dens. 

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Patience is not something I have in any quantity so I'll never join the ranks of those wildlife photographers who spend months in a blind (hide) waiting for that one chance to get an award-winning image.

Wildlife photographers have to be tolerant of frustration and disappointments – but on those occasions when everything comes together, WOW !!