One of the great inherent frustrations arising from nature photography stems from those moments when an image needs to be captured despite knowing it requires more than the equipment on hand.  As one who continually pushes the envelope with my cameras based on my ability to see things, I find this truth no more obvious than when something at great distance catches my eye with little time to snap a photo before the opportunity forever disappears.

Many times I discover later that I have wasted the moment, what with the result being a blurry, unidentifiable, grainy mishmash of color that hardly could be called a photograph, let alone a picture of anything interesting.  Those items serve to remind me that the only facsimiles remaining are those living in my memories, and they also remind me that the often hastily jotted notes in my journal regarding that particular walk will forever represent the only visible proof of what I saw.

Yet once in a while, buried deep within the confines of an otherwise useless scene, a bit of splendor pokes its head through and offers a glimpse of the magic that so enamored me.  Of the many tens of thousands of pictures I’ve taken, hidden jewels sparkle in the happenstance captures of what could have eluded the lens.

This brief series of posts is a celebration of those almost-lost circumstances.  While this focuses on birds, I intend to do a similar group of posts in the future encompassing insects (I know that surprises you).

I apologize in advance for the quality of many pictures included here.  Each of these is a crop of a much larger image, all of which encompass a minute fraction of the total canvas.  That tiny piece, that tiny blink of time, however, shows what nearly escaped.

There are no larger versions available.  What displays within these posts is all there is to show.  Hopefully they offer something to the casual observer.

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