The Sad Side.

Dale.

Dale.

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Dale.
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This is something I never thought would affect me.

It has struck me lately, that whether we admit it or not and maybe it's a subconsious thing too but wildlife photography can be a sad pastime.

Since late last year, many of you will know we've had a fox visit us every night, almost without fail. He would go the odd night when he didn't turn up and on 2 occasions, he didn't show for about a week. One day just a few weeks ago, I passed a fox dead on the roadside just along from where we live and I felt a very strong sadness, firstly at seeing the fox dead but then it hit me, it could've been 'our' fox. I began to realise then that it's more than photography, there's a connection with our subjects too.

Our fox hasn't showed since Thursday last week it really isn't like him, he has been every night for about the last 4 months. I could call him or whistle and he'd come from nowhere. I know maybe I shouldn't be but I am worried, especially as we live quite near a very busy road and also and more worryingly, we are surrounded by farms and farmers will do what they need to do to protect their livestock.

I've had the honour this last year of experiencing 2 broods of kingfishers, I've watched them from digging out the burrow to the chicks flying about with both broods. I am now within 15 feet of regular kingfisher perchings and I honestly feel, those kingfishers know they are not threatened by me in anyway, they 100% know I'm there. I would also do what I had to do to protect them. It's coming to an end though, that's 2 broods now, I'm watching for signs of a third brood given the mild weather, although it is unlikely. The fledglings will soon disperse and I'll probably never see them again, that saddens me in a way. I'm happy they've pulled through to this stage but they'll soon be away.


Call me sentimental, a softy, whatever but I have noticed this feeling recently, the joy of being with these animals brings with it an emotion that I can't quite put my finger on what it is.

Anybody else?
 
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I regularly visit the same pair of barn owls. They are pretty predictable now I have spent time with them. On days when I go and they don't show I immediately start to have some slight sense of worry. Various 'what if' questions cross my mind. I know of course that they do visit other patches on their travels, but it still makes me anxious until the next time they show up. I know exactly what you mean.
 
It's a mixture. Generally, I wish wild creatures well & want them to thrive - like the swifts that nested above one of my windows year after year & you could peer into the nest through a crack. Or the curlews that migrated from the coast up the valleys to the uplands yearly at the end of February, their numbers declining to a vestige as forestry supplanted open ground and the farm boys whizzed about the remaining rough pasture on quads ...

But some things bite you, and some eat your vegetables. And you wouldn't want those ratty people in your house, would you?
 
I think part of being human is to enjoy the natural world and appreciate the wonders of it, including the ephemeral aspects and the 'red in tooth & claw' ones too.

What saddens me most is the human influenced losses of both species and environments due population pressure, greed, hunger and many other factors.

IMO the world has become a diminished place with losses of species and reduced (to the point of extinction) numbers of individuals and will continue to be a poorer place in decades & centuries to come purely due human population density and climate change.

In the meantime all I can do is rejoice in what we share our planet with and do my very small part in helping it to survive another year to be enjoyed and appreciated again.............. :)

PS the various butterflies on the buddleia bushes make me smile.....Red Admiral, Peacock, Painted Lady, Large and Small Whites & numerous bee species. What's not to like :D
 
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Like you Dale, I've not seen 'our' Badgers or Foxes visiting the garden for a long time now and I am the poorer for it ... I do wonder what has happened to them.
In truth I suppose they have gone back to how they were before lockdown with the human species now getting on with life despite the virus ... just as they appeared with the quiet they have now disappeared with the noise.
I believe that part of our purpose on being put on the earth was to care for the natural world but we have truly messed it up. :(
 
There is a lake near me where one bank is accessible and the other is not. At the start of summer I saw that a Moorhen had made a nest on the bank close to the footpath which I thought odd, they normally favour the safety of the far side. In it was 10 eggs.
After a couple of weeks I walked past and noticed all the eggs had gone, yet not a single chick. I guess a fox or maybe a dog had gotten to them, that is life but a shame all the same.
 
I've always been an outdoor type person and have spent most of it outdoors through both work and pastimes. Things were certainly different when I was a kid back in the sixties - I'm often astounded at these changes; very few of them for the bettter.

Here's a few lines from the film 'The Matrix', that I think just about sums us up as a species:

Smith to Morpheus

"Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area.

There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.

Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet."
 
Sky said:
I've always been an outdoor type person and have spent most of it outdoors through both work and pastimes. Things were certainly different when I was a kid back in the sixties - I'm often astounded at these changes; very few of them for the bettter.

Here's a few lines from the film 'The Matrix', that I think just about sums us up as a species:

Smith to Morpheus

"Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area.

There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus.

Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet."
Click to expand...
Broadly the same "raison d'etre" put forward in the remake of The Day the Earth Stood Still with Keanu Reeves, as well ;)

PS though as a child I watched the original with Michael Rennie and that IMO is a classic movie :D
 
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I'm not a big animal guy but I have a grey squirrel that visits - she even comes up to the Kitchen window - scratches the glass as if she's knocking the door- then climbs down as she knows I won't through out the food with her on the window sill. Once she climbs down - out goes some biscuits/nuts/old bread and off she goes.

She hadn't been by for 3 days and I was a bit worried about my squirrel - and she came by yesterday to do the routine and all was well. I remember this squirrel from when it was very small, she had some brains to climb up - then climb down again to wait for the food to come out. I know I'll miss my squirrel when she goes. I cannot actually ever remember an animal that I've bonded with so much.
 
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Thanks for saying this aloud @dale and others, I feel the same. I'm not fortunate enough to have much wildlife coming to visit, too urban and fenced off, but in the last year with the fruit trees I've planted and nurtured, the flowers I've planted, and letting the lawn grow fuller and longer, we've seen a plethora of new bird visitors, lots of bees and other insects, and it feels so good to see all that.
 
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