Webster defines serendipity as: “the faculty or phenomenon of finding valuable or agreeable things not sought for”. Serendipity plays a very large part in my photography. As a photographer (and a person) I need to be open to changes in “my” plan, I need to be ready willing to take advantage of different opportunities that might present themselves.
I have been trying to get good images of meadowlarks for a long time, like 5 or 6 years. The shot I had in my head was of a meadowlark sitting on a fencepost in full song. While I had been trying hard for years it had always eluded me. When a couple of years ago I found the perfect situation, a large expanse of rolling grasslands just loaded with meadowlarks. The only problem was that there were no fence posts for them to sing from. No problem, I will bring in my own fencepost for some lucky bird to use as his own personal stage. Flash forward a couple of weeks and I am sitting in my blind in front of the fencepost, meadowlarks are singing all around me. I know that birds like to sing from an elevated perch, certainly it is just a matter of time until one chooses my fencepost from which to sing. Well after four or five hours of staring at an empty fencepost I am just about to pack up and call it quits, when I look up and there are not one but two birds sitting on my perch. It seems that a pair of tree swallows chose my fencepost as the perfect place to carry out their courtship rituals, and I was able to get one of my favorite bird images.
Oh and by the way I was finally able to get some good images of a meadowlark singing on a fencepost. It happened one day when I was trying to photography sage grouse.
