If you’ve followed my ramblings in written form surrounding the topic of photography, it is likely that you stumbled across my tales of woe regarding an elusive hawk. If not, I highly suggest reading that before venturing forth in this saga. You see, there was a bird that I desired to photograph. He became highly suspicious of my activity long before I even had the chance of grabbing my camera. Enough so that he withdrew from my vicinity in a manner that left me feeling cold, alone, and sad. The one that got away. I just wanted a photo.

To this day, I do not understand how a bird of that magnitude would ever feel threatened by me. The ability to fly, stare into the depths of your soul, make horrific squawking sounds, catch mice with their bare hands are among the short list of notable skills. Being moderately good at euchre and predicting what the announcer is about to say during a football broadcast is mine. I can not fly, my eyesight isn’t that piercing, and the last time I tried to catch a mouse with my bare hands my cat sat and watched as it politely said, “no thanks.” I knew mice were fast, I did not know they were escape artists.

This all starts with my wife’s due date.

My wife was pregnant. Stating that she was with child suggests she is no longer. And that would be correct. We are happy to announce the birth of our first and most precious baby boy. However, he was not one to be rushed out the door, so to speak. The eviction notice was in and my stubbornness seems to have been passed on even before birth. Impressive. His due date came and went and he seemed quite content to stay put.

Looking more as if she had swallowed the watermelon that she had recently purchased for us to consume, I noticed my wife shuffling outside to yell at a thief manifesting in squirrel form. I noticed she wasn’t as quick as I recalled previously. Normally the squirrels ran away with purpose as she would quickly close the gap. However, this squirrel seemed to just sit and taunt her on the railing, begging to see her try and catch him. Then she let the dog outside. Amused, I saw just how quickly one's smug face can be wiped clean with the sounds of a 50+ lb husky sprinting toward you. Work smarter, as they say.

While I admire her ingenuity, I had hoped to see my wife in squirrel chasing form once again. I knew we needed to get our baby on the move. Head south, little man. We are all ready to meet you. We tried all the hacks to induce labor; certain types of tea, lots of walks, watching baking shows … None seemed to help. Although I was starting to crave strawberry rhubarb meringue tartlets for some reason.

Then the weekend after the due date came and we were desperate. She was more than I, but either way it was a collective effort now. My goal was to help her relax. Relaxing helps, at least my overly simplistic male brain told me it did. You know what helps us to relax? Lakes. We decided to go for a drive to one of our local Finger Lakes. The beauty of living where we live is, when we ask if you’d like to go to the lake, you actually have to discuss which one you’d prefer.

Relaxing drive, relaxing location.

You know, I get caught in my mind regarding bringing my camera on excursions. There is almost always a sense of, why would I drag along this much equipment when the intent is to relax? A great question, one that this excursion helped to answer.

Anyways, we landed on Canadice Lake. A beautiful, secluded, non-residential lake within 30 minutes of our home.

Then I saw him. I saw him perched on top of an old, dilapidated barn. Underneath this structure that barely seemed able to withstand its own weight were a handful of cattle. I won't go into specifics on the type of cattle as my attention was initially elsewhere. I thought out loud to myself, which sounded a lot like talking to my wife. “I should stop and try to take a picture of that hawk. But I’m pretty sure it will just fly away like the last one …” My internal external dialogue is still bitter, apparently. To which she agreed we should try.

I pulled over quickly and thought through my approach. I quietly got my camera gear out, made sure I wasn’t getting run over by passing cars, crossed the road like the punch line of a chicken joke, and set up my camera. The first thing that distracted me was some disturbing noises coming from underneath the barn. Then I saw why. Play the intro to a popular Marvin Gaye song to get an idea of the provocative scene coming into focus before my very eyes.

Nope, back to the bird.

With my lens constantly pointed in the direction of this fowl friend (see what I did there?), I meanedered my way around the fenced area composing as much as I could without stepping in excrements or disrupting the inappropriate behaviors of barn animals. The funny thing is I must have taken 50 photos within a minute or two. I was so desperate to get one decent shot of this thing that I simply spammed the shutter. To walk away with just three decent photos was a relief.

The closer I got the more agitated the hawk appeared. He never once took his eyes off me. And he made it known when I got too close. I preemptively changed my camera focus to continuous just in case he decided to get out of dodge. He then literally yelled at me and took off. He yelled loud enough that my wife, still in the car, could hear. And thanks to my thinking ahead and making a hawk angry, I captured what I deem to be the “cool” photo of a hawk. I’ve fulfilled my destiny.

After that adrenaline rush, I took my face out of my camera and looked down to the cows. Eye to eye with a herd of large land mammals glaring at me. Ah, right, I’ve crashed the party. Those dull, judgmental eyes wishing there wasn’t a fence between us. Go on, live your lives of passions and lusts. I have my photo. And I have a lake to get to.

Sure enough, as it would play out, my wife began having contractions on the way back from Canadice Lake. We would meet our baby boy that evening.