Laura Erickson's For the Birds

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

One constant in my life

Every night as I try to fall asleep now, I can't stop thinking about the black stain growing insidiously in our nation's soul. Every day I wake to new bad news--the spill is 5,000 barrels a day. No--12,000. No--20,000. No--60,000. The coastline affected grows daily.

But there's one constant in my life. Virtually every day when I check the stats for my flickr account, the one photo at the top--the one more people click on than any other, is this one of Jeepers the Neighborhood Pileated Woodpecker. I can take an amazing shot of a Prothonotary Warbler, or a series of photos of a woman tossing fish to a Brown Pelican who catches them in mid-air, or a silly shot of a goldfinch that looks like it's levitating, or a Great Blue Heron with its beak open and a fish suspended in space between the upper and lower mandibles. No matter how many photos I take, and how many are really good shots, ever and anon the number one shot is Jeepers.