Common Birds 63 - Bufflehead

Friday, February 9

The earth at the head of the trail now gives beneath my soles. I smell damp soil, not frost. The ice on the pond sighs and creaks as it grows old.

The river is almost completely still. Fog settles low over the water. The three buffleheads are back. I’ve seen them each day I’ve been out since last Friday. They dive and surface and dive again, rippling the mirrored water. While mallards just tip over, buffleheads almost leap clear out of the water before plunging into the depths. Further offshore, a female common merganser swims upstream, trailing a gleaming wake like the train of a gown. 

I’m greedy; I want to get pictures of these buffleheads after they evaded me a week ago. One of the secret paths goes down to the river’s edge. I take it, trying to line up my monocular and my phone camera. One of the female buffleheads emerges from a dive, and I can tell she sees me. The male pops up, and they start swimming further away. I get a bit careless and trample to the shore, furiously hitting the volume button on my phone to snap pictures. Then in splashing water and flapping wings, they’re gone, and I am alone with my half dozen or so blurry pictures. 

I’ve been taking more pictures than normal recently, I think because they’re an easy way to share what I’m seeing. This week in particular they’ve been accidentally blurry, but because of the blur they’re some of my favorites. I don’t have good equipment. I’m using my hand to hold a monocular up to my phone camera. So when I try to take sharp pictures, the limitations are usually clear to see. Things are out of focus, edges aren’t sharp, there are chromatic aberrations, the zoom isn’t as strong as I’d like. But if the picture is blurry, none of that matters. Instead of unsuccessful fighting against the weaknesses of my camera, instead of trying to make it something it’s not, blurry pictures allow me to receive and love what I’m given and what I have. 

Do I wish it was still winter? Yes. I want the squeak of snow and the frozen clarity of the air. But it’s sort of warm, the river is still, and the fog wraps me in soft light. Why fight a beautiful day?

Lightly, I approach the outlet of the cattail marsh. A great blue heron hunches in the tall stalks. There’s almost a path that would take me to the edge of the shallow water where I would have a clear line of sight. I look at the heron, look at the trail, and give up. There’s no way I’m sneaky enough to get there. So I let it be, and head back to the office.