Squeamish photo post

I saw a bird chewing gum today!!

I know that sounds crazy, trust me I know!!
Here is what happened.

I was driving out of my neighborhood, headed out to do errands!
I had to stop by the bank, go to Sally to choose a new color, go to Sam's to pick up various and sundry exceedingly large items and to visit a friend who is home-bound.

I had a few other things that I probably could have done and will probably wish tomorrow when it is pouring rain that I had done, but it was more important to me to spend my "away from home time" today with this friend.
I basically only have 5 hours when I leave from home to accomplish all that needs to happen or bad things will occur.
Bad as in, little doggie left in a crate bad...need I say more??

Wow, what was I typing about??
This is my brain folks!

Bird, large bird...got it.

He was quite a large bird, which is why he caught my eye as I was driving by.
I stopped, put my van in reverse...hoping that the extra movement wouldn't scare him off, and backed up.
I had put my camera in the van today in hopes that my friend may have something interesting to photograph at her house. I put the van quickly in park and leaned over to get my camera bag while talking quietly to my new bird friend asking him not to move.

He swiveled his head to check me out.

I was so nervous about him leaving that I was a mess trying to get all my settings right on my camera.
I stopped talking to him and began confusingly talking to myself.

"Check the ISO, okay checking the ISO...oh no...it is very cloudy is 100 gonna be enough, oh it is already on 100 I am gonna just leave it there so that I can check the next thing, what is the next thing....uhhhhh, uhhhhh, oh never mind what is next how about is he in focus."
I put the camera up to my face and clicked.

and clicked and clicked.
And began my dialog to myself again.
"Oh no, he is so far away there is just no way he is gonna be clear enough especially with that stinky plant there. I wonder if that plant is a male or a female?? I know I can crop the picture but if I could only get closer then I could see if it were focused better. If I take the time to change my lens will he fly away?? I am gonna change my lens, careful now Jennifer, don't drop anything, be gentle, changing the lens don't leave birdie, stay there and let me take your picture beautiful birdie. Okay there we go lens is changed now to try to focus again, hurry hurry hurry he is gonna fly away and all will be lost"
click click click
Some time when I was changing my lens must have been when he dropped his bubble gum.

Just look at him there staring curiously at it!

I tried to focus even better, though shaking with anticipation of a good shot. I should have just calmed down and taken a big deep breath and focused on getting it right.
I was just so scared that he was gonna fly off.
I know now that one great shot would have been better than 15 not so great ones.

Living.
Learning.

The next time I looked through my lens this is what I saw!!

Whoa! He has got some of that really stretchy gum!!!

The kind you can just pull and pull and it doesn't break it just gets longer and longer.

Click, click, click!
I started to get nervous about how this looked, me parked at a wonky angle in front of my neighbors house taking pictures with my telephoto lens. I gently capped my lens and stowed my camera back in the bag.

I then removed my foot from the brake...
(because when you are rushing to take a photo of a gorgeous red tail hawk {my son who is supposed to be doing his math homework but is stalling and looking over my shoulder informed me of this fact} it is important to put your vehicle in park and keep the foot on the break, you know just in case that park gear on your van decides to stop working on the last day of the month)
... put my van into drive and went along my merry way.

And you know what else besides gum chewing hawks happened today??
Sally was personally there to talk me through the whole professional haircolor process and gave me a coupon for free highlights.
I bought 12 things at Sam's and it all only cost .37 cents.
My broken leg friend miraculously recovered and skipped to the door to greet me, then we ran out the door to go make snowmen!

If only I had taken the time to notice as I was taking the first photo,

a little squirrel leg and tail with a large bird of some kind standing on it the better to disembowel it, I may not have continued shooting and had to make up some sort of story to make this a bearable thing to write about.
Disembowelment of any sort tends to make me squeamish. I can't even do the holiday turkey!!

And furthermore...
Seeing him enjoy his ultra stretchy gum did not make me want to have any.
In fact, I don't think I will be chewing any pink bubblicious for some time now.

Ha, who needs inspiration for photo taking when there is so much just right around the corner from my own home!!