Photo Shoot at Great Meadows
Erin and I went to Great Meadows in Concord the other day, expressly for a photo shoot. When Beth and I walk, we take pictures on the fly. We don’t wait around much. Sunday Erin and I brought camp chairs and tripod, and he lugged his huge telephoto. We chose a spot and waited for what may.
Erin recently returned from Montana, where buffalo, antelope, deer, and osprey were served up aboundingly. That sounds exotic, but getting intimate with even a small, common creature like a chipmunk gives revelation of what’s around and beside us. Exotic enough.
Great Meadows is a National Wildlife Preserve. I lived near it for more than twenty years. I remember when the Republican Congress closed the government back in those frothy Contract with America days. Great Meadows was officially closed but I got in by way of the path. I’ve walked, run, cycled, and skied to and thru it myriad times. I’ve seen it change, once much tended to, now largely left to its natural devices.
Last year, a parking fee was imposed. You fill out a ticket for your car and leave four bucks in a box. We did so but I don’t suppose park rangers, who I rarely see, actually do much checking up on who paid. I do not begrudge the payment but do begrudge the political entropy and Republican sludge that allows so much of value to go to waste while we manage other countries.
Erin and I set up at a spot on the dyke (causeway?) that separates the two bodies of water. I say water but American lotus abounds so much that you could almost walk across. An opening in the cattails bordering the water gave us a viable view.
Three geese already laid claim to the spot. Our presence spiked their interest but didn’t cause them to abandon their place. We put our chairs in place and the geese stayed put, albeit watchfully. They are used to the proximity of people here.
I don’t want to sound like the next television show about St. Francis Assisi but I chattered away at the geese. I’m hardly aware that I do it. I greeted them, apologized for disturbing them, assured them that I meant no harm. I don’t think it is anthropomorphism to do this. It’s just a way to acknowledge and relate to them. I always speak to animals like this.
Animals do, after all, make noises and gestures at me specifically, and to all that might hear and see. One can glean the simple text often enough. We can share the space on Earth, not just appropriate it.
The three geese were variously wary of our presence, especially mine. I stepped close, for pictures of them and of the expanse. The young one was the least concerned. All three worked earnestly at their preening.
A tree nearby had a busily vocal bird. A passerby called it a marsh wren and I won’t argue. Triangulating where it perched in the tree proved difficult. I finally got to see it, not well, and photograph it, not well. The upbent tail in the photos says wren to me.
At one point I looked up and a man stood near us expectantly. Erin was involved with his camera, his meaning Erin’s. I quickly understood that the man’s interest was in Erin, or more accurately, his camera, which is primo. Erin has a mondo telephoto lens, so the man sensed who was what. He pretty much ignored me. The man spoke of having just been photographing a dragonfly. He lit into technicalities beyond my ken and my more modest camera. Erin knows a spike more about those technicalities so he and this man conversed. Nature photography was the portal for the man’s gregariousness. Other people joined in.
At one point when just Erin and I remained, I heard a splash behind us. The other side of the causeway, fifteen feet away, also opens to the water. Three geese stepped ashore. They clearly intended to join the geese on our side. I moved my chair to give them a wider berth, and I gestured and told them to go ahead. The young one least cautiously joined the ones in front of us. The adult female eyed me, made vigourous nods of her head that I imitated, stepped toward me slowly but meaningly, and finally passed thru the gauntlet.
The male did similarly. I got up to facilitate his passing, but he took that as aggressive and chose to circle in back of me. Finally they became a pod of six. They all preened, with modest attention towards me.
Eventually we moved to the other side for a view of swans, osprey, and blue heron. All stayed mostly out of range of my camera, but not Erin’s. Conversations continued to sprout up with people passing by. We were involved in a much more social activity than one might think.
A man asked us if we were waiting on the heron. Erin said the osprey. The man said, I’m here for snakes, frogs, and turtles today. He peered about the water’s edge then moved on. I did see a snake, which a woman was pointing out to her children.
A woman pushed her wheelchair-bound mother along the dyke. She pointed out the heron and osprey and the mother gamely tried to be interested. What I mean is, she couldn’t see well, and the effort of getting about is wearing enough, I’m sure, so the reward goes mostly to the daughter for making the effort.
Seeing them brought to mind my mother’s last visit to Great Meadows. She had broken her hip some while before. She never cottoned to the walker that she got after rehab. It was annoyingly clumsy for her. She wanted to use a quad cane if she had to use anything. One day we got her to Great Meadow, and she walked some distance using that cane. She was very earnest about this accomplishment.
When my mother lay dying, I told myself that I would not write a poem about her death, would not use that. The morning after she died, I wrote the poem that I wouldn’t write. It was a memory of her walking in Great Meadow with a quad cane.
Erin managed to get a shot of an osprey with a fish that it had caught. It was a large fish, nearly the size of the bird. I guessed catfish just by the look of the fins. I don’t have much knowledge of fish so that’s just a slim guess. I have yet to see the image in larger format that what the camera viewer offers.
Erin likened photography to fishing. You spend a lot of time waiting. I tend toward movement but the geese particularly proved enthralling in simple ways. I was two to six feet from them much of the time. They preened, they stood on one leg, they pooped, they flopped their heads onto their backs and slept, and so on. They mean to be. The Buddhist asseveration that all creatures want to live and be happy seems like the easiest truth. It seems also the easiest to disregard, sadly enough.
We cooked in the sun till after noon. The gregarious man told Erin about a place in Watertown where fish are easy marks for hunting birds. We may go there some time, but certainly will return to Great Meadow. Looking forward to fall and the massing of birds.