When I started birding many, many years ago with Ruth, after a day seeing too few birds, she would say, “All we need is one good bird.”
Of course, it was just a positive way of saying it sucks to be skunked, but, as a photographer, there is some truth to the statement. When you’ve been taking bird photos as long as I have, I rarely capture even a single picture that I end up keeping because I already have better pictures.
Birding at Lake Ralphine/Spring Lake was slow during our recent visit. I didn’t see hardly any of the birds that I usually see there — no Mergansers, no Night Herons, no Acorn Woodpeckers, etc. By the time we arrived at Spring Lake and saw a few more birds, my camera battery had run out of power, and the backup I had picked up on the way out the door turned out to be empty as well.
Needless to say, though I enjoyed the walk after driving all day the previous two days, I was disappointed by the lack of photos.
It was only when I downloaded the photos that I found a shot that I really liked:
