Sloth Machines

There were a few reasons why we did not go birding last Saturday: The skies were a bit gloomy early that morning, gasoline prices were still sky high, my wife was a pain in the neck...I mean she had a pain on her neck, and my right index finder - my camera trigger finger, was out of commission.

An accident last Thursday made it incapable of normal functions. It got caught in the door of my Jeep as it slammed shut. What was worse was that I couldn't go anywhere else to stem the gush of blood that flowed as I was in a laundromat doing our laundry. With the aid of my handkerchief (what will I do without it?) and tons of paper towels, I clamped my left hand over my bleeding finger in a valiant attempt to ease the dripping and lessen the pain. An hour and a half later, when all my laundry was done (how I managed to fold/hang them without getting stained by my blood was a miracle in itself), I quickly drove home, washed the wound and wrapped a couple of band-aids on it. And that, thankfully, helped a lot.

And to top all these reasons, each one valid as they were, there was a matter of slothfulness. That overpowering feeling of not wanting to do anything that would involve even a hint of exertion. Summer days usually bring about such lassitude. Besides, there weren't a lot of birds to see. A totally fitting justification, I might add.

And so around 10 am we decided, a bit reluctantly, to do some errands. Just as we were about to exit our tiny community, we both saw, at the same time, a hawk perched atop the huge water tank. I screeched to a halt, handed my Canon 300D (my very first DSLR) with a 18-55mm lens attached to it to my wife. I always carry this gear where ever I go just in case some photographic opportunity would present itself. Such as this hawk. Of course with such a short lens, the hawk appeared as a mere dot in the picture. "Let's go back and get a bigger lens", my wife suggested. Even before Cynthia could finish her sentence I was hurtling back home, less than 5 minutes away. Now armed with a 30D and 100-400 lens, we returned to the site. Just as I got off the Jeep with my camera, the hawk flew off. Fortunately, the hawk soared in circles above the water tank and Cynthia, who took the camera from my inept (and unlucky) hands, was able to snap off a couple of shots. That was our grand birding adventure for the day.



After we returned from our errands, we enjoyed a leisurely lunch of philly steak sandwiches. That afternoon we slept a little and then schlepped the rest of the day. All in all it was a day of respite for this pair of aging machines.

P.S. "Speak for yourself", my wife said as she read the last line.