I Gave My Wife A Car Ride and Look What I Found...

   When you are a care giver, and you live on an island that is like 12 miles long and less than 2 miles wide, you look for places to go to give your charge a change of pace from the condo and its views.

   It does not take long to exhaust the possibilities, and then you begin to revisit and look for reasons to go there again.

   Often I resort to the camera to give me an excuse to get out to various places where I have been before, an area which is subject to changes in wildlife and opportunities for new angles and different lighting.

   The other day, I asked my wife if she wanted to get out of the condo and take a car ride, to which she replied, as she most always does, in the affirmative.

   Harrington Park is a small Glynn County plot a couple of miles from our place with a couple of lakes, well, ponds really, where I have been before, several times. As usual, Mayre made a choice to stay in the car while I take a look around and see if there is anything new.

   Taking my backpack with camera and a couple of lens, and my tripod, I take off pond #1 where I look for birds or whatever. From my vantage point at the south end of that pond, I could see some white waders at the north end, so I move to that point.

   Setting up I shoot a Little Blue Heron, which is white, not blue or grey when immature, and take a couple of shots.

   Here is a shot taken with my 24x105mm lens from a fair distance away:



   After putting it into the computer with the processing program, I got these:



 

   Moving to my east a few paces, I was standing on the overlook of Pond #2, so I took a look for any more shots before heading back to the car.

   Sensing movement at the far north end of the pond, I saw what looked like a log moving across the water.

   Now the picture is not very good, and I cropped it to see what it was, and sure enough, it was a gator. I had heard rumors of one around here, and there he was.



   I go back to that park and those ponds on occasion, but have never seen the gator again. Surely I can get a better shot with a longer lens.

   An outing to get my wife out of the condo turns into a photo op that gives me more excuses to revisit that area. Perhaps I can get her out of the car to go down to those ponds, but probably not if I choose to tell her about our reptile friend.

   But she will let me go anyway, and that will be good.