It’s been a busy couple of weeks, both in the wild and on the business end of things. Doing the Lithia Artisan’s Market every weekend starts taking a toll by the end of September. Setting up and tearing down a booth 4 times a weekend isn’t always fun. But it keeps the dream alive! I’ll get a break from shows and markets in January.
My latest booth design.
Camera trapping! I’m getting better at it … I think. I may be getting luckier too. I don’t know.
Another young coyote … perhaps the same one as in the last post, hard to tell. Whatever, so beautiful .Mama of the two cubs. REALLY happy with this one. The mood lighting is courtesy of the two cubs who had rearranged a flash.
I’ve applied for one grant to gain additional equipment for camera trapping. I plan to apply for another too. The process of setting camera traps is very different than traditional wildlife photography. I love both approaches equally and I can do both simultaneously.
I have fallen completely in love with the American Black Bear.
Lots of stuff going on in nature. I’ve been on a role with camera trapping. The more I do it, the more I learn. The more I learn, the better I get at it. A few recent highlights include a very young coyote and very young bobcat (both only several months old) visiting the same waterhole only a few nights apart. Not sure who is cuter!
Both of these animals have spent the summer with their parents, learning to hunt and avoid danger. Female coyotes remain with their family unit for quite some time, but if this is a male, he’s already facing the world alone. Young bobcats are mostly hunting on their own by this age, but are still part of a family unit until about a year of age.
The longer I do this, the more I see wild animals as individual thinking, feeling beings.
While maintaining the camera set up that captured both of the above images, I had a visitor … or maybe more like a supervisor(?). I’m not sure I’ve ever had an owl literally come right to me the way this Great Horned did. Beyond cool. Maybe people wonder if I attract animals in some mysterious way. I don’t think so, but moments like this can make a guy wonder. I tend to think I’ve become hyper-aware of wild animals in my surroundings, compared to most. This owl was completely silent when it flew in and the entire time it was perched. I don’t think most people would have noticed it … but it was impossible for me to not. Weird.
I did run all the way back to the car, to get my “regular” camera. So glad I did!
The business end of things has been more unpredictable than the traps! I had one of my best weekends of the year, followed by one my worst. Honestly, the business end of my career has been pretty stressful the last couple of years. I will be travelling to Portland and Humboldt County for shows during the holidays. I had hoped to not have to leave home anymore to sell my work, but the market is so unreliable since the pandemic.
Elster Photography 