Why I should Stop Being Lazy and Carry My camera

I guess I am lazy, but I hate to carry anything when I walk. Thank goodness I wasn't born a woman, I could never tolerate a pocketbook. But I have come to the conclusion I need to get over this laziness and carry my camera. You see, I keep my camera in a pouch strapped to my belt. Very convenient, but very difficult to get to quickly. As a result I am missing some interesting pictures, such as the fox I met face to face on the trail a bit ago. The fox froze in a perfect pose, but by the time I got my camera out it bolded into a nearby field and I missed it.

I've missed a few more good shots  the last couple of days.

Today, for instance, I thought a stroll up Rocky Run would be enjoyable. I haven't walked that path recently, especially with the rain and floods we've had. I went up the path, but at the meadow the trail disappeared into a marsh of mud and water. I didn't feel like sinking over my shoe tops thus I backtracked a little ways and went up what I call High Ridge. It is up atop a mount and runs parallel to the main trail. I walked back and followed up where it rises even higher up the Piedmont and through the woods and emerges on a campsite high on the hill. Then I turned around and came back.

As I was walking I heard a twig snap to my left. I glance over and thought I saw a white shirt and movement behind a bush. That made me edgy. Why would anyone be back there? It is the deep scruff and there is no trail, only rough ground and thicket.

I walked on and another twig snapped. I stopped and stood looking over in the direction of the sound. A few moments passed before I realized I was being watched. There between two trees stood a large deer staring at me. I don't know if it was a buck, it didn't have antlers, but it was very large and quite handsome. I reached to my pouch, but as soon as I did it bolted back into the brush. I saw another set of legs follow, so I have no idea how many deer may have been there.

But once again I missed the shot because my camera was zipped away at my side.

I continued down off the mount to Rocky Run heading out this time. As I reached that trail two dogs came bounding up it toward me. The lead dog was a Yellow Lab, looking much like my dog, Tucker (who died earlier). The other was also a large dog, but all black.

As they ran toward me, I froze. They had been at a distance when first I spotted them and there was no sign of a person about. The dogs stopped directly in front of me and I began to stick one hand out for them to sniff. Suddenly the yellow lab begins barking at me. The black dog quickly follows suit. Both are blocking the path and barking and making little lunges in my direction. I am saying something, probably, "It's okay, fellows."

I am glancing about for something to protect me, like a large sharp stick, when I hear a woman's voice far down the trail call a name and yell, "Come here!" The dogs pay it no mind. Finally two women appear and after several calls and admonishments to the pooches, the hounds turn tail and run to them. I see them snap leashes on the beasts.

The women are very apologetic and assure me this was very unusual behavior. We have a little chat of pleasantries and they go up the trail and I go down. After while I wonder if I should have told them of the deer. I wouldn't want the dogs to go chasing, but it is too late now. I go on.

I am coming up the main trail and happen to glance left at the creek. The Brandywine is several yards beyond this trail. There is a narrow barrier of trees along the left side, then the ground dips down to a large apron of grass. Across the way I see the Great Blue Heron sitting up on a downed tree branch.

I ignore the brush and press through the tree line, cross a patch of mud (this whole area had been under water a week ago) and pull my camera free as I step over the grass to the shoreline of the creek. Amazingly the great bird doesn't fly away as it has every time in the past I have tried to film it.

I stand on the bank as still as I can for nearly a half hour filming the Heron. I am staying so long now hoping it will raise its wings and fly so I can capture that graceful departure. But it doesn't leave. It stands on the branch and looks about. It preens itself, looks across at me, but it doesn't fly. I finally move on. I have the bird recorded, but it is still at a distance. You can see it in the photo at the top of this post if you look closely. You can almost see it better in its reflection in the water than its actual body against the background.

But this is what I mean, for the day before I had been walking on the Northern Greenway from Rockwood to Bellevue and back. Coming back I turned a corner and there was a Great Blue Heron standing directly in the middle of the path not more than 15 feet away. Magnificent, what an opportunity, but as usual, when I began to unzip my camera pouch it took flight. For such a large bird it disappeared very quickly.

Later, as I was driving through the woods after my walk, heading home, a pelican flew directly in front of me. This was rather unusual for around here. Perhaps the pelican had been driven northward by the hurricane, but it was definitely a pelican. I was driving then, so there was no chance of retrieving my camera from its garage on my belt.

As disappointing as it was to miss these pictures of wild beastee and bird these were't the most disappointing of all. That missed shot had come earlier on my Rockwood-Bellevue walk.

When I parked at Rockwood and exited my car, I also pulled out my camera. There were three large trees that had been uprooted near the gazebo. I filmed these and walked up the hill and around past the mansion. Here I took some more film of those trees from above. Now I walked on, taking some shots of downed trees and branches in the mansion yard. I decided I would film the creek that ran alongside the woods I was entering. I had been here the day before and that creek was roaring, splashing high over rocks and creating the white foam of rapids.

I came down today and no roaring, no big splashes, no foam. The creek was wider than normal, but pretty calm. I decided not to film and to put my camera safely away in its little black pouch. I stood on a curve of the path struggling to get my camera back in its bed. The pouch isn't large and I carry my id in it (I don't take my wallet or money on my hikes) and also my car keys. It took some effort, but I got the camera in and zipped the pouch closed.

Now as you pass through these woods to the rear of Rockwood you see a community of homes across this creek. Up ahead of me was a footbridge over the water that joined a path which meandered through that community and if you followed it, you could walk all the way into Alapocas Run State Park.

I noticed a woman standing just on the other side of the bridge. As I came nearer on my path, she stepped out to the middle of the bridge and leaned against the railing to the far side from me. She was looking down toward the creek. I then noticed a man on my side, presumedly her husband. He was on the grass and walking down the embankment toward the stream bed.

They were saying something to each other, but I couldn't hear.

He disappeared behind the bridge and down the slight hill and suddenly she pulled her shorts down.

I do not know why, but yes, she pulled her shorts down and she was wearing nothing beneath.

I do not think she was mooning me because I am fairly certain neither of them were aware I was there. They had both been intently looking down at the stream. Perhaps it was an accident, a wardrobe malfunction. I have sometimes had my pants slip down, in fact, a regular happening this year after I lost several pounds when I started walking regularly again, although I always caught my trouser or shorts before they fell that far.

Maybe she was flashing her husband.

I do not know the reason and she pulled them up a moment later. I only know if I had kept my camera in my hand I would have recorded that posterior for posterity.

I must get over my laziness.

Hot and Hazy: Great Blue Herons, Man Boobs and other Rambles, The Series Continues

The Little Wife and I were sitting in a booth at Barnabys. We've eaten out every day this week. She isn't cooking while we are baking; that is, with outside temperatures in the 100s, we're all about keeping cool.

So we are sitting there and I say, "I went looking for that heroin again this morning."

"Heron," she says.

"What?"

"Heron, not heroin."

This is that slight hearing defect I have had all my mortal days. At least, I claim it is my malfunctioning cochlea and not some mutant synapse misfiring in my brain. Whichever, it has been a problem all my life and I often can't distinguish certain sounds or pronounce similar words. Choral,  Corral and Quarrel always came out the same, for instance. I can't get my tongue around Calvary and cavalry correctly. Thus the phrase Great Blue Heron that I can hear clearly in my head comes out of my mouth as the great blue heroin. I don't know if there is such a thing as blue heroin, I don't know what its street value may be and I certainly am not interested in tracking it down.

We wrote yesterday of writers using words some might find offensive. You can certainly see the misinterpretation, misunderstanding and mischief my little pronounciation misfires could cause.

Anyway, here is the thing, I was in Brandywine Creek State park walking along side the Creek when I saw a tall white thing sticking out of the water near the opposite side. I got a bit closer and saw it was a bird, a rather large one and knew it had to be about four foot tall. It was simply standing still, straight up.

I flicked on my Flip and began videoing, trying to get further up the trail and closer. I do not know if it heard me or simply decided to move, but it spread it's wings and flew across the creek toward my side. I hurried on, around some bushes, but when I got into the next clearing there was no sight of it.

I was telling my wife at dinner that I had walked that same trail again. This I seldom do. I like variety and generally will not repeat a route two mornings in a row. However, I really was hoping for a better film of the bird. This had been the third time I saw it in the last couple of weeks, but only the first time I was able to get my camera on it.

It is a beautiful bird, especially in flight. I saw it land one day and this time I saw it take off. It spread those wings and rose, seeming to defy physics given its size. It was very graceful, and actually very fast, even though it reminded me of watching those big military cargo planes takeoff at Dover.

I'm pretty sure it is a Great Blue Heron. They are native to these parts with a known rookery over at Ashland. They do indeed reach heights of over four feet and have wing spans on nearly six.

I wish I could have gotten a closer film of this creature, but I did the best with what I had. The photo at the top of this post is the bird standing in the creek. It appears as a long white streak at the center of the photo framed by some branches of leaves. Keep this location in mind if you play my video so you can pick up the bird. The video is short and the bird is quick once it moves. I did do a slow motion sequence and a couple instant replays to try and help pick out the Heron.

Flutists, Mosquito Hordes, Golden Doodles, Bird-Watching Mailmen, Falling Horses and Other Distractions at the End of the World

There has been nothing wrong that explains my absences from these pages for so long. Perhaps I could claim in light of the imminent end-of-the-world, now put off until October 21, I was busy contemplating my fate before the Judgment Seat, but that wasn't so. No, I was just entangled in the usual knots of daily existence I suppose. I also have been writing, you know the old fashioned kind before the boom of Blogs. So one can say that writing took me away from writing, something of a contradiction or conundrum.

The rain was something of a downer, too. Those dark and stormy days, denying me walks, tended to lower my energy and flare my arthritis. But the rains have passed and in their place has come heat, up in the nineties, July and August temperatures in May and the First of June. So I walk early, which I always do anyway, to beat the heat and survive another day.

I also bought a Flip Video Camera. The videos I did before were on my digital camera, but the quality and clarity were never up to the same standard as the still photos. I decided to try something dedicated to filming. I am still experimenting and working on a more steady hand. After the words here upon, you will find three videos of my practice. The scenes were not all shot on the same day, although I arranged the sequences to be in proper order. The first takes I did still had some shake and bounce, so you will identify the earlier bits by that. I bought a tripod the next day and screwing this in to the Flip as a handle seemed to remove some of my quiver.

Anyway, if you view the videos I suggest you scroll down and turn off my music player. There is no narrative on the films, but you can hear distinctively the forest sounds, especially birdsong to the backbeat of my crunching steps upon the trail.

What you won't see in the videos are most of the distractions that disrupted my walk and filming.  I have tended with age and curiosity to speak to people along the way, especially if they are puzzlements. I do not care to stick a camera in their face, however, so I generally snap it off during conversations. So here in print are the gaps and the tales of these interesting encounters.

Let's begin with Jerry the Flutist, or Flautist for any Anglophiles, who is pictured walking along at the top of this post. I met Jerry a few weeks ago, right after the floods we had. He had a long, strange object in his hand and so I asked, "What's that, some kind of musical instrument?"

Yes, it was, a kind of flute, but very different and very beautiful. It was shaped more like a Recorder than the flutes we see in marching bands. You blew in the top and played finger holes straight down the tube and it was quite long. I don't remember the name, but it was a Native American instrument, all hand carved from wood, polished up to bring out the shine and distinction of the gain. It had been made for him by a friend who does those things. Jerry said he had another, but was reluctant to bring it because of its size, fearful people would be spooked, think it a weapon, perhaps a bazooka.

He was going on a trip to Colorado and would take this flute with him. He hoped there would not be any problem taking it on the plane, but he would not go without it. It was too important to his soul now.

His wife had died last fall and this was his consolation and his spiritual connections to his love. He came to the park and wandered its paths playing music, very well I will add. I've passed him several times since, tootling and soothing away his lost in melodies played to the trees.

And I saw him as I began my filming walks these last few days. So we can start with him tooting our overture as we march upon our own way, our own spiritual journey along the creek.

Ah, the creek, the creek, the Brandywine is more river here, broad and flowing. I choose the West wood path right by its side and decided to walk this to Ramsey Road and then back on the higher, wider Piken Creek Road and finish it off with a climb up a Piedmont Hill.  These are the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. They sit like humps and bumps between the sea and the higher climes from New Jersey to Alabama. They are beautiful festivals of color in the fall and bleak landscapes in winter, covered with leafless trees standing like tombstones above the carcasses of fallen brothers.  Now after the weeks of rain, they are green jungles steaming with this current blanket of heat.

They run down this edge of Delaware like its spine, festooned with the hard blue rock we are so proud of and rising to our higher elevations of 400 feet or so. Not enormous, but still somewhat challenging to hiker and biker.

I start out along the flat and low lying river, following a narrow dirt path into the tangle of shrubbery, sometimes coming near crumbling edges of riverbank, sometimes twisting as if after a wandering snake into honeysuckle or thorn. You can follow my amble on this first video.

After entering and traipsing deep into the woods I come to a cross trail. Here a kind of marsh has formed on one side and there is another pool of stagnant water right next to the creek on the other side. I stepped into this area and was immediately a buffet luncheon for a batch of mosquitos. Every time I glanced down some bug had its straw-like mouth in my flesh happily slurping away.

I swatted my way through this thicket of bloodsuckers and then forded a little run by crossing a fallen log. If you look in the video you will see this run is festooned by brown, flat material. This stuff is cornstalks, carried and trapped at this place from the cornfield we will soon walk beside. The cornfield you see was a few weeks ago under water from the flooding of the Brandywine. You have to realize how high the banks are here to appreciate the amount of water that overflowed them and its power to pluck the field clean of last years empty and dead stalks.  Now the field is all planted with the sproutings of this years crop. It was also aswarm with circling clusters of gnats. These tiny insects swirled about in the air, tiny dervishes of constant motion.

And while I watched this dance, a large splash from the creek caught my attention. I thought perhaps some large fish had jumped or perhaps a goose had landed. In a moment a large, soppy-wet, oddly furred hound bounded from a small side path before me, shaking droplets in all directions. Ahead came a couple with another large dog I easily recognized as a Yellow Lab, much like the Tucker we lost last spring. The two dogs came rushing to me, tongues lollying and tails wagging. The soaked beast was a Golden Doodle, part Golden Retriever and part Poodle. This was Melvin and Maxine. The owners explained there was a third dog, a Chihuahua and Jack Russell Terrier mix, but he was at home.

I actually learned most of this on my second meeting with Melvin and Maxine, but I give it here anyway.

Continuing on past the corn, I hook up with the Piken Creek Road, the wider main path through this side of the park. My plan is to come back along this dirt road after I turn around at Ramsey.

 Piken Creek Walk One

As I started down Piken Creek Road toward Ramsey Road I spoted someone standing in the middle of the trail. Not only is he standing there, he is staring up toward the tree tops. You know how it is, you see someone looking up, you have to look up as well.

"Something interesting up there?" I ask him.

He explains a certain bird hard to spot is in these trees. A bird tweets and he asks, "Hear that. That's its song." 

This is Don, the bird-watching mailman from West Chester, a Pennsylvania town not far from the Delaware border. He tells me he grew up in the country and took a notice and interest in the birds. I grew up a good bit in the country myself, but I'd be hard put to name many birds by sight, let alone by their call.

I wished him happy bird watching and continued out to Ramsey where I turned. Don was still there when I returned and now he joined me on my jaunt, pointing out various birds as we went. I had intended to follow the Piken Creek Road, but now we sauntered back down the cornfield path, once again encountering Melvin and Maxine and their jolly owners, where we paused for a lengthy conversation.

I told Don he might be interested in a bird-watching group that wanders through the park regularly. It is led by guides from the Delaware Natural History Museum. I had run into a group not long before this popping out of this very trail, older people like me, all with binoculars dangling about their necks. I wondered if this was the best way to watch birds, trotting through the trails in large groups, but Don seemed interested. I hope I meet him again, because I gave him wrong info. I thought this group met every Saturday morning, but on getting home discovered it was a monthly meet, not weekly.

I split from Don back in the midst of the mosquito infested portion of the woods. I took a side trail to get back up on the Piken Creek Road and then to the Piedmont hill I intended to crest.

As I walked along this winding passage, a horse suddenly appeared before me, a lovely creature of white with large patches of brown. A lady was amount. She probably had come down the Piedmont herself, from a horse farm up atop it.   I stepped aside to let them pass.

"Walk early," she said (the lady not the horse) "so you don't die." 

This was in reference to the high heat we were having. It would be up to 94 by afternoon. Just as they passed by me, the horse stepped either in a small hole or skidded on a hidden rock and stumbled.

"Don't fall on me, buddy," I said.

"He won't," said the lady.

I wasn't really worried about myself, but concerned the horse might get injured. He righted himself and they went their way and I went mine. 

Piken Creek Walk Two

I came back onto Piken Creek Road just below a bridge. I let a bicyclist zip by and then I filmed myself standing on the bridge gesturing like an idiot. I look as if I am telling you what is over there and what is over here, but actually I am not saying a word, just waving my arms about and dithering in silence.

From there I walked up to a couple of rocks along the trail and looked down. A month ago some bicyclist tried to ride his bike up this incline and flipped over on his head. I wish I had filmed that.

Now I begin the long climb up this Piedmont hill. It goes up and up and up for quite a ways. As I start there is another path to my right, which is where I will return after cresting this hill and heading down the other side, a complete circle.

Not far past this point I am struck by movement ahead. A big tan dog is racing -- alone -- toward me. He is woofing. This is always a nervous situation. I don't like meeting a strange dog in the woods. Who knows what it will do. Much to my relief its master, a young woman, and another dog soon appear. Both dogs are Labs, one a Yellow very like my late Tucker, meaning it is kind of plump. They pass me by and I hear the young woman direct them off on what will be my return path as I continue my climb.

At the top of the hill I come out in farmland. There is hay as far as you can see. The path, barely discernible, goes through the hay and reenters the woods on the far side. The hay is very high. It actually comes to above my hips. I came through this field a week ago, before our hot spell and everything was still wet from all the rains. By the time I crossed this field my shorts, legs and shoes were soaked. This was a situation best avoided this day, since I discovered the particular shorts I was wearing this time get quite transparent when wet.

I met the young lady and her two dogs again part way across this field, a situation which could be awkward in transparent shorts to say the least.

Finally it is back into the coolness of the forest. I was beginning to perspire in the field, caught directly in the morning sun. Now I snake my way  back down the mount on a narrow, steeper trail and end my first practices with the Flip.

Piken Path Walk Three

Bats in the Belfry, Birds in the Laundry Room and Something Squirrelly in the Basement

Okay, for the sake of full disclosure, I never had bats in the belfry. That is mainly because I never lived in a church and didn't have a belfry. Although back in my wasted youth I wrote a musical play called, "Ya-Ha-Whoey!"

What's that have to do with any of this? Well, I wrote the book and lyrics, but I am not real strong on writing notes on a staff that sound good, so I had a collaborator named Bob who could do that. He and I would work on the music together and for reasons I am not certain of myself, we did this composing in the bell tower of the George Washington Chapel in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania. (Pictured on the left.)

Now there was a little room up there with a piano and a lot of shadows you reached by a twisting stairwell, if I remember correctly. I don't recall any bats, unless you count us two batty guys plinking out show tunes on a dusty keyboard.

Man, sometimes I think I lived a rather weird life.

Nonetheless, I did experience those other things. We lived in a double-house or a semidetached or whatever you calls it nowadays in Drexel Hill. One days we heard some strange noises emanating from the basement. Going down to investigate something whipped on by and somewhere else an object fell with a metallic clang as things were knocked about by two squirrels showing their furry tails as their fleet fast feet carried them hither and yon about that cavern of a cellar.

I did not know how they got in and I did not know how to get them out. There was no door to the outside down there and I had no intention of luring them up the steps to the kitchen. They might have found the upper floor much more cozy than that dreary basement and moved in as permanent squatters. I had to hire an exterminator to extract the tree rats, for which the little beasts should be grateful. If they had remained where they were they might have well drowned, but that is another story.

The birds were a different story and I handled them myself, probably badly. The first time this occurred we were living at Ski Mountain, a ski resort(?] in South Jersey. I know, I know.  It is flat and all that in South Jersey and hard to believe one could be living at a ski resort, but yes, we did. The complex was called Chalet, like in Swiss Chalet, which they have in all those ski resorts in the Alps presumably. Actually, this ski resort was not far from the amusement park where my late-teen friend lived. (By late-teen, I mean we were in our late teens at the time, not that my old friend is dead, which he may or may not be.) This was Tom, I mentioned him before somewhere in all these postings. He and I met while both studying IBM Programming and Cartooning. (What tha?) He's the one I got lost in the Ladies' Room of the Wanamaker Store in Philadelphia with while trying to find the subway.  See, I told you I think I've lived a weird life, but none of this has anything to do with the bird in the laundry room.

Anyway, there was this bird in the laundry room of our Chalet apartment at Ski Mountain in South Jersey. I do not know how or why he was there. Perhaps he had clothes to wash. He was not a little bird. He (or she) was a big bird (not The Big Bird), just a big bird. He (or she or hesh) might have been a Mockingbird. It was certainly mocking me. I mean I was kind of scared of this thing with its long pointed beak and big flapping wings and sharp looking toenails.

Now at this time I was working for an egg breaker. (Do you think the bird was some kind of avenger?) Yes, there is such an occupation as egg breaking. I had a hard hat I had to wear when I went into the plant. I put this hard hat on, got a butterfly net I happened to have laying around (don't we all) and managed to shoo this feathered fiend out of the laundry room. He (or she or hesh**) immediately zoomed down the hall into the bedroom and then into the closet. Here I come in pursuit, smacking myself on my hard hat with my butterfly net because I was too stupid to close all the inner doors before getting it out of the laundry room.

The photo on the left is a rather poor one of said laundry room.

I seemed to be quite adept at chasing creatures into that closet. Once it was a mouse. "Oh, there's a mouse, there's a mouse. Get it, get it!" had screamed the Little Woman and it ran into that same closet and cowered in a corner. Now as I hovered over the quaking mouse, the Little Woman hovered over me saying, "Oh, he's so cute. Don't hurt him." I got a beer stein from a collection of these mugs that I had and captured the mouse within. Snapping the lid down on the stein, I toted the little fellow a couple blocks up the street and set him free. Let him invade some other Chalet dweller's closet.

However, this mutant bird wasn't cowering. He (or she or hesh) was glowering at the funny man in the hard hat. Now it swooped, I ducked and it disappeared out the bedroom door and down the hall. A moment later the little Woman was screaming in the living room.

I raised my trusty butterfly net and hurried forsooth to the rescue, finding the Little Woman crouching in terror upon the sofa as this bird made strafing runs back and forth across the room. Pausing, I remembered, and leaving my wife to perhaps a horrible fate, I hurried back to shut the bedroom door before erstwhile bird should decided to retreat there again. Now I scurried to the kitchen and slid open the back door leading to the balcony. I charged the bird, who then charged me and as I hit the deck, it swooped low then made a beeline out the kitchen door and was gone.

We seemed to have escaped these home invasions for many years, but then just a few ago I was sitting in the living room where we now live and saw the cats taking an unusual interest at a corner cabinet. What is this? They were scratching and staring and doing those funny moves cats do when stalking prey. Was there a mouse in the house?

Something scurried across and under the entertainment center. Ah ha, most certainly a mouse. Yeah, right, a flying mouse, for suddenly this thing was in the air and zooming about the room, then out to the kitchen and down the hall. And right behind came a leaping, bounding army of confused cats.  The Little Woman came upon the scene at this time and we had a repeat of the long ago huddled on the couch in terror scene. This time she was holding pillows over her head.

Cats bounded off walls, between my legs, over the furniture and this tiny bird whizzed around and above my head. Now came the tricky part. How do I open the door and let this creature out without my cats escaping?

I didn't. The bird landed in a corner, perhaps exhausted by its predicament and I was able to scoop it up before any cat got to it. I carried it outside and set it loose.

And I hear some people think a pigeon in the garage is an ordeal.