Tale of a Young Red-Tail
The field naturalist should never go anywhere without a camera and always have the thing loaded with enough film. You never know what you'll see and be able to photograph. In my case, I own a reasonably strong 300mm telephoto lens that attaches to a newer model Canon and like a dummy one day, I convinced myself I'd have no pictures that day.
As Murphy's Law would have it, I trekked out one crisp autumn day into my nearby wooded patch, quite sure that I wouldn't see anything worth photographing. Not only that, I wasn't exactly in the best mood for a hike. I was in familiar territory, too, and that can be dull sometimes. I'd finished a roll the other day and had tidied up with developing the existing snaps I'd taken, mainly of landscapes. So that late morning, just talking a quick jaunt, I was certain I'd have no need for my bulky telephoto. It was just then that I had the opportunity of photographing in the field a young Red Tail (B. Jamaicensis) of course.
What was worse, I did not even see it, first. A few nearby golfers, seeing my get-up of 16 x 40 power binoculars, bush hat and sturdy boots, asked me what kind of bird that was up in a nearby tree. (I'd been looking in the other direction, trying to avoid being seen by them.) I looked knowledgeable, in other words.
Not more than twenty feet away from them, perched in a wild black cherry tree, hung a chunky bird of prey with a stippled breast and piercing eyes. Looking "Naturalist's Notebook" like, and assuming my Theodore Roosevelt pose for the men, I swung around, saw the beast and announced, "probably a young Red Tail. There's lot of families of them around."
Now, other than being dumb enough not to bring my camera, this was where experience counted. Immediately, the post-novice's mind starts to take in the details and the second-guessing begins. I'd only looked at the creature once or twice at about 40 feet away at that point. But through a 16 x 40 Bushnell, you can see a hawk about as well as he can see you. It turned out I was right on my first hunch. But that sureness came only later.
So, like Èmile, I crept out of the forested haunts and moseyed along the golf cart trail. The Noble Savage stepping out of the forested glade and into the world of civilized man. The gaggle of golfers half watched me, half concentrated on the fairway, waiting for the group ahead of them to melt into the Par 5 distance.
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