The 29th day of the tenth month of the year of the Camellia

ON THE HUNT!

I had the wonderful pleasure of going " On the

hunt" for the first time in a lot of years.  Hunt with that camera that is.  The weather finally got so that there was actually sunshine this morning at 7:30.

I knew that if the otter was going to show, I could make some decent images and the sunrise caught me at the top end of the RiverWalk in West Columbia.  It was chilly and what minimal lingering mist over the water burnt off very quickly.  I arrived at my destination with just enough light to chronicle the starting point of my search. 

I think that I am going to have to rename the area "Moby Rock"!  You can see the large bolder straight ahead that someone painted an indentation which could represent the whale's eye.

I wasn't aware that whales had green eyes, but it did make me look at that rock in a different way than I had in the past.

While standing there and scanning the water, the otter swam onto shore to my left from the upriver side.  About six feet away and caught me by surprise.   I had assumed he started his morning by swimming up stream.  So much for my intuitiveness.  Or knowledge of wildlife for that matter.  He does fish by going up stream because most fish (his prey) will lie facing the flow of water waiting for something to be washed down to them.  Hence, he can sneak up on them from the rear.  After getting around me, he calmed down and started his day.

For a while he remained back lit and hence all of the detail of his face and body were in silhouette.

The light slowly got a bit better and I was able to get a bit more definition.  The golden hour had not started in this location yet, but I could not resist him taking a brief rest.  These guys are perpetual motion most of the time.

This is a nice little scenic of him and of course with much better light.  I spent two hours trying to keep ahead of him as he worked his way down stream.  Trying to keep the light to my back as much as possible and him as close to shore as possible.  Reminded me of my days in the north woods of Pennsylvania and New Jersey in pursuit of white tail deer.