Some days nature hands you a masterpiece.
Other days…
It hands you a floating mystery blob.
There I was on the Narrow River, scanning the water for the Ferraris of the bird world—Barn Swallows.
Correction.
Lamborghinis.
Ferraris don’t corner like Barn Swallows.
I’m standing there with my trusty 500mm lens, tracking these tiny aerial lunatics as they violate every known law of physics. One second they’re over here. The next they’re over there. The next they’re somewhere behind me laughing.
Then…
Something drifted into view.
Not flying.
Not swimming.
Just…
…existing.
It bobbed along with the flood tide like it owned the river.
Naturally, I did what every wildlife photographer does.
I took an identification shot.
You know.
The photographic equivalent of squinting.
I looked at the image.
Nothing.
Zoomed in.
Still nothing.
“What in the world is that?”
An alien?
A mutant clam?
The world’s smallest horseshoe crab?
A lost toupee?
This had suddenly become personal.
I lowered the 500mm.
Reached for the artillery.
The 800mm.
For those unfamiliar with wildlife photography, switching from a 500 to an 800 is a little like replacing binoculars with the Hubble Space Telescope.
Click.
I reviewed the image.
Zoom…
…zoom…
…more zoom…
And then I burst out laughing.
I had made one fatal assumption.
I was trying to identify a living creature.
Big mistake.
This wasn’t alive.
It wasn’t even trying to be.
It was a crab shell.
Upside down.
Completely hollow.
Floating like a tiny canoe made by Mother Nature.
The poor fellow had already donated himself to the Circle of Life. Some lucky predator had enjoyed an all-you-can-eat seafood buffet and thoughtfully left the packaging behind.
Only on the Narrow River could yesterday’s lunch become today’s wildlife mystery.
Of course, I immediately wondered who the culprit was.
A fish?
A raccoon?
An otter?
A mink?
Then I remembered the gulls.
Those feathered pirates.
Those airborne hoodlums.
Those professional food thieves with absolutely no shame.
Somewhere nearby, I’m convinced a Laughing Gull was watching me through one squinty eye.
“Look at him.”
“He’s using an 800-millimeter lens… to photograph my garbage.”
Another gull probably chimed in.
“Should we tell him?”
“Nah… let him work for it.”
And that’s the wonderful thing about photography.
Sometimes you capture a majestic eagle soaring into the sunrise.
Sometimes you immortalize a crab’s empty shell doing synchronized swimming.
The camera doesn’t judge.
It simply records the evidence.
In this case…
…evidence that the smartest creature on the river wasn’t the photographer.
It was probably the gull.
Laughing.
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