Magical Moment

When I get to feeling down, after I've wallowed in it a little (yep, it's ok to wallow as long as you get back up), I pull myself up, grab the camera, and go see what I can find.  As I snapped photos of this fellow I felt like time stopped.  He sat panting on the suet and I feared he was caught somehow, I slowly approached him.  I watched him, and he watched me, each step I took I paused, when he remained in place, I took it as consent to come closer.  I walked within a foot of him, and still he stayed.  I've never been that close to a woodpecker before and for a moment I wasn't sure what to do.  I spoke to him, he looked at me, I slowly reached my hand up to set him free. I was surprised to see he was much smaller than my hand.  My fingers were within a couple of inches of his tail when he let go and flew to a nearby tree.  The joy I felt in that moment was the therapy I needed.

~ You can see the explanation behind this project by going here or see the all posts in this category by going here. ~

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The woodpeckers seemed to want to play with me today. I had a pair sitting on this branch for a while, the male flew off before I could capture them together. Beak to beak they sat inches apart chattering. After he flew off, she remained and let me walk around her snapping photos.

With all the rain we're having, yes I woke up to rain again today, the lighting was horrible and I had to have the ISO way up to shoot. I didn't want to use the flash on the birds because that would have only given me opportunity for one shot. I mean, if I were 5' away from you and flashed a bright light in your face wouldn't you fly away? So these are, without flash, no tripod, in low light.