The 10th of June was a pretty special day. I had a standing offer from a friend, photojournal reader, and bird biology researcher named Oliver to come and visit him at his field site, and I was determined to go visit him before I went back to work after the time off for surgery. I was feeling pretty good on the 10th, so I headed to Oli's site, which was at a dairy farm in the eastern part of Surrey.

Oliver had given me a good set of directions, and the place was easy to find. Right after pulling in, I encountered the farmer who owns the farm, a big and quite friendly guy. After ascertaining that I was one of the "bird people," he pointed me towards a trailer out behind the barn. The trailer served as the field station for Oliver and a few other researchers.

On my way over to the trailer, I encountered a dead animal. If you don't mind such subject matter, clicking here should take you to my photo.

I found Oliver in the trailer with his two assistants. They were busy at a computer working on some experimental data. Despite my arrival being a bit unexpected, Oli took a fair bit of time out and showed me around the farm. I didn't do much picture-taking while he was showing me around, because the plan was for him to give me a tour and then let me wander as I would. We were both hoping to be able to spend more time together (two bird enthusiasts...) but Oliver had work to do.

Anyhow, once Oli had shown me around, I decided on a trip through a row of cattle stalls and then to walk around the edge of a nearby field, where Oli and co. had erected a line of nest boxes for the European Starlings that they were studying.

I didn't do any photography of the cows in their stalls, as there were a few people around and despite Oli having assured me that it was okay for me to be walking around and photographing things, this was those folks' workplace and I didn't want to disturb them.

Besides which, the cows were watching me pretty carefully as I went through there. I didn't want to disturb them, either.

But right at the end of the stalls, I couldn't resist taking photos when I caught sight of the following little lady calico. This was a proper farm, after all—it had lots of farm cats. Oliver didn't think that anyone had a name for this one, who was a little bit camera shy.

That tree was pretty cool. The bottom part was a tree that had broken off pretty far up there, about halfway up the photo. That part looked to be a Grand Fir. From where it had broken, other trees (of an entirely different species) had started growing; some grew straight up and some grew outwards from the main trunk and up. These trees looked to be Cottonwoods of some sort. You can see their whiter, thinner trunks as the top half of the tree.

When new trees grow out of the decaying body of an old tree, the old tree is called a nurse log for the new ones. Usually, though, nurse logs are fallen trees, not standing ones.

After taking lots of shots of that tree, I drank some water from a bottle I was lugging around and almost-reluctantly put my long lens back on the camera. I hadn't seen much to aim that long lens at, and I was thinking that maybe I should just leave a shorter lens on and concentrate on scenics or whatever. But one of the first rules of thumb for wildlife photography is to keep the long lens on the camera by default. Subjects that require wider angles are often like that tree above—they don't fly away while you're changing lenses.

Subjects that require narrower angles are typically the smaller, more mobile things. Sorta like the next thing that caught my eye: the unmistakable zip-and-stop of a hummingbird in flight. Since I had that long lens on, it was a simple matter of point the thing at the bird, focus, and shoot. I actually ended up with focus on the leaves behind the bird, so it's not the best shot in the world, but I wouldn't have gotten a shot of this lady at all if I'd've had the short lens on.

Sometimes the extra effort to stay prepared pays off.

But it didn't pay off that much, and I didn't find any other subjects until I was all the way around the field back by the barn. There I caught a couple of starlings up on a light on a stanchion.

I headed back over to the trailer to see if Oliver was still around, and right before I got there I encountered this friendly little fellow. He's called Joe, and he hangs out with the bird people. He's pretty devoted to them.

Joe will wait outside the trailer for Oliver and crew to show up in the morning, and hang out with them all day. (That can be a long day, too—Oli often need to be there in the wee hours, like 4am, when it's just before sunrise and the starlings haven't yet had their first cup of coffee). Joe will even accompany the bird folks to make sure that nothing untoward happens to them when they go around the farm to check all of the nest boxes. He's just that kind of guy.

Well, that about did it for me at the farm. I hopped in my car and started driving out the dead-end road that leads to the farm. I stopped when I saw this bunny at the side of the road, though. I didn't dare open the car door, so I took this from the driver's seat with the window rolled down. This guy is a Snowshoe Hare, our indigenous hippity-hoppity fellow.

I had hoped to see more birds at the farm, but realistically that meant getting up for early morning, which was very early at this time of the year. (And so, knowing me, not very likely.) On the other hand, there were lots of cool cats and cows and farm stuff around there, and so I still had a grand time there. I was happy that I had taken the time to get there before going back to work.

I'd like to thank Oli for having me out there and showing me the cool stuff, and my friend Margo for help identifying my nurse tree and its charges.

Until we meet again,
Tom