Red Fox (just for the record)

I so rarely see a Red Fox, so I wanted to add this to my albums, just for the record. Unfortunately, I was sitting on the 'wrong' side of the car, and also zoomed in too far. I suspect heat distortion also added to the awful quality of this image. I joined nine birding friends on 25 March 2018 for a trip east of the city. Not a lot of birds to be seen, but we were lucky to start the day with a Brown Creeper and end the day with a single male Mountain Bluebird. This was the first Bluebird I had seen this year - they are just starting to arrive now. No Snowy Owls were seen. A new bird species for me was a juvenile Iceland Gull.

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It is way past time that I add apologies for falling way behind, not only with my commenting on other people’s photos, but also on keeping up with my own postings. Over the last three or four months, it has been one thing after another that needed to be dealt with – why is it that the unwelcome things never seem to come one at a time, ha? Times like Thanksgiving and Christmas are always difficult times for me, along with various 3rd anniversaries connected to my older daughter. For some reason, this season was more difficult than last year.

I could definitely have done without the whole hassle of having to sort out and fix the mess that was caused when someone (or two separate people) tried to make suspicious purchases using my credit card, resulting in my card being cancelled (without any notification from the Bank!) and various services being shut down. Took about five weeks to get everything sorted out.

Throw in a long issue with a camera that I bought more than a year ago and am still trying to get the manufacturer to fix the problem. When I use Playback, the camera keeps skipping over some of the photos, and it has done this since I first used the camera. When I went back to the store at the beginning, I was told that it would have to be sent off for repair. I couldn’t do that because I needed it for my Trinidad & Tobago trip. Finally, I let it be sent off just before the warranty ended, shortly before Christmas. It was so-called “repaired” and returned, but in fact it was exactly the same as before. Now I am without it for the second time, hoping that this time it will actually be fixed. Not the end of the world, that’s for sure, though photography is vital to me. I am still working on a major photo contract, which I will describe once the whole thing is finished. I’ll just say that it is a very special and exciting project for someone, involving a set of images that I took a few decades ago.

Stress over my daughter’s upcoming major surgery is unavoidable and we will both be enormously relieved when it is all over with. Heavily overshadowing everything during the past three or so months was my own health. After worrying myself sick, and for much too long, I finally saw my doctor, who ordered various tests including an ultrasound, to see if I had cancer. Three days ago, I was told that nothing of any concern had been found, to my huge relief. I’d like to think that I will never be in that situation again, as ‘terrifying’ would be the word to describe it. How I feel for all those who are not so fortunate to get good news. Anyway, all these things left me feeling totally stressed out and drained, with no energy to do much at all. The day before I had my tests done, I knew I just had to get out and look for an owl, and I was so lucky : ) I have taken so few photos the last few months, which I always find depressing. Yesterday and the day before, too, I just had to get out on a couple of day trips with friends. Too tired to add descriptions on Flickr the last two mornings, but hopefully I will catch up. Thank you to anyone who happens to read this!