MERIDIAN —     Over the last 45 years I have often been blessed to experience the “unexpected” when spending time outdoors.  And for the first 40 of those years, my special wildlife experiences were recorded only in my memory….and admittedly some of those memories have begun to fade.  While someone usually had a camera on our hunting trips, it was generally used to take those “after then hunt” photographs of family, friends, and the game we harvested.  When my love for photography was re-ignited by a friend some years ago, I realized that I could expand my opportunities to “take home a trophy” by simply taking my camera into the woods.   

    Such was my experience on the Saturday morning after Thanksgiving.  While my rifle was nearby, it was my camera that rested on my lap as the woods began to take shape. As the range of light changed with the sunrise, I periodically fumbled with exposure settings, just to be ready if anything special happened.  What did I expect?  At most I hoped for an opportunity to photograph a busy squirrel collecting acorns or maybe a turkey scratching for leftover rye grass seed.  Perhaps if I was really lucky, a hawk or an owl on the hunt would cruise within range, although photographing anything in flight brings on special challenges.

    As the patchwork of brown and white emerged from the woods and onto the field’s edge, I was, for a moment, a bit lost.  The image I was seeing simply didn’t match any animal in my frame of reference.  Was it a Border collie, or calf that had escaped a fence somewhere?  But wait…..it did register. It was a piebald deer!  For a second, I recalled my first sighting of a half white doe deer years before.  During the hunting season that year, nearly every member of our family reported seeing that brown and white doe.  And when we’d gather after a hunt, someone would always say, “I saw that piebald this afternoon. Wish I’d had my camera instead of a gun!”

    Well, this morning, I had my camera!

    Whether it was the first click of the shutter that brought him to full attention or simply that “knowing” they have, he stopped and stared in my direction.  In photography terms, he seemed to pose as if to give me ample opportunity to get the shot right!   With shaking hands I struggled to steady the camera for the 150 yard shot.              

    Then, as if to say, “Okay, that’s enough,” he turned to leave.  It would probably be good literature to say, “He simply melted into the fall woods.”   But the truth is, when you are half white in the fall woods, you don’t have the luxury of “melting away.” You simply have to get out of sight!

    He was gone and I realized I needed to breath.  As my hands slowly steadied, I realized that I had just experienced the familiar exhilaration I used to feel as a youth every time I encountered a deer in the woods.  It was good to feel that again.  And this time, I won’t have to depend on my memory alone to relive the experience.

    Take your camera to the woods.