{"id":1978,"date":"2018-10-24T08:00:33","date_gmt":"2018-10-24T08:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/?p=1978"},"modified":"2021-01-18T12:22:36","modified_gmt":"2021-01-18T19:22:36","slug":"a-happy-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/?p=1978","title":{"rendered":"A Happy Accident"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[et_pb_section fb_built=&#8221;1&#8243; admin_label=&#8221;section&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;3.22&#8243;][et_pb_row admin_label=&#8221;row&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;3.25&#8243; background_size=&#8221;initial&#8221; background_position=&#8221;top_left&#8221; background_repeat=&#8221;repeat&#8221;][et_pb_column type=&#8221;4_4&#8243; _builder_version=&#8221;3.25&#8243; custom_padding=&#8221;|||&#8221; custom_padding__hover=&#8221;|||&#8221;][et_pb_text admin_label=&#8221;Text&#8221; _builder_version=&#8221;3.27.4&#8243; background_size=&#8221;initial&#8221; background_position=&#8221;top_left&#8221; background_repeat=&#8221;repeat&#8221;]Sometimes, it is just better to be lucky than good. When photographing birds and wildlife, one can take all possible measures to maximize success. Regardless, there is a fair amount of luck involved with photographs. For instance, one can go to place well known for an abundance of wildlife and bird and still come away with little or nothing to show for the time invested. I have been tying to catch a Northern Flicker (<em>Colaptes auratus<\/em>) in flight for some time. They are a constant around my house in winter and even cling to the side of the stucco in the corners of walls and sleep at night. Still, I have not been able to get one in flight. They are a fairly skittish bird as well, and that certainly doesn&#8217;t help. I was out this morning, and I am fortunate to live within about five minutes of a migratory bird refuge. The morning was slow and I was returning home with little of consequence to show for my time. Then, there, sitting on a fence post, on the side of the road\u00a0(which is unusual) was a Flicker. I pulled to the side, shut off the car, and grabbed my camera. Fortunately, the Flicker stayed put and gave me a precious few moments in which to photograph it in different positions. Then as my finger pressed the shutter button for a profile shot \u2014 BAM! \u2014 the Flicker took to the air. If I had tried to time the take-off, I would have missed. A happy and fortuitous accident. Sometimes, it&#8217;s better to be lucky than good.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/DBP_Z7_20181023_0387-1.jpg\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-1983 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/DBP_Z7_20181023_0387-1.jpg?resize=1024%2C698\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"698\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/DBP_Z7_20181023_0387-1.jpg?resize=1024%2C698 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/DBP_Z7_20181023_0387-1.jpg?resize=300%2C204 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/DBP_Z7_20181023_0387-1.jpg?resize=768%2C523 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/DBP_Z7_20181023_0387-1.jpg?resize=1080%2C736 1080w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/DBP_Z7_20181023_0387-1.jpg?w=2160 2160w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/DBP_Z7_20181023_0387-1.jpg?w=3240 3240w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Fluer_de_Lis-Drop-Shadow-e1410388334602.png\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-731 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Fluer_de_Lis-Drop-Shadow-e1410388334602.png?resize=50%2C50\" alt=\"\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/a>[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sometimes, it is just better to be lucky than good. When photographing birds and wildlife, one can take all possible measures to maximize success. Regardless, there is a fair amount of luck involved with photographs. For instance, one can go to place well known for an abundance of wildlife and bird and still come away [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"Sometimes, it is just better to be lucky than good. When photographing birds and wildlife, one can take all possible measures to maximize success. Regardless, there is a fair amount of luck involved with photographs. For instance, one can go to place well known for an abundance of wildlife and bird and still come away with little or nothing to show for the time invested. I have been tying to catch a Northern Flicker (<em>Colaptes auratus<\/em>) in flight for some time. They are a constant around my house in winter and even cling to the side of the stucco in the corners of walls and sleep at night. Still, I have not been able to get one in flight. They are a fairly skittish bird as well, and that certainly doesn't help. I was out this morning, and I am fortunate to live within about five minutes of a migratory bird refuge. The morning was slow and I was returning home with little of consequence to show for my time. Then, there, sitting on a fence post, on the side of the road\u00a0(which is unusual) was a Flicker. I pulled to the side, shut off the car, and grabbed my camera. Fortunately, the Flicker stayed put and gave me a precious few moments in which to photograph it in different positions. Then as my finger pressed the shutter button for a profile shot \u2014 BAM! \u2014 the Flicker took to the air. If I had tried to time the take-off, I would have missed. A happy and fortuitous accident. Sometimes, it's better to be lucky than good.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/DBP_Z7_20181023_0387-1.jpg\"><img class=\"size-large wp-image-1983 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/DBP_Z7_20181023_0387-1-1024x698.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"698\" \/><\/a>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Fluer_de_Lis-Drop-Shadow-e1410388334602.png\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-731 aligncenter\" src=\"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/Fluer_de_Lis-Drop-Shadow-e1410388334602.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"50\" height=\"50\" \/><\/a>","_et_gb_content_width":"","_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[287,3],"tags":[289,28,49,291,290],"class_list":["post-1978","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-avian-animals","category-blog","tag-birds","tag-boucher-photographie","tag-dave-boucher","tag-flight","tag-northern-flicker"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p51QJU-vU","jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1978"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2670,"href":"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1978\/revisions\/2670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1978"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1978"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.boucherphotographie.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1978"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}