They Run Me Ragged

I’m sitting here at my desk right this moment watching a Brown Creeper scale the pine outside my window as I write this! More than once I have grabbed my camera and raced out to photograph them only to come back with no clicks. So last week while at Magee Marsh (such a wonderful place) when the first Brown Creeper appeared, I was excited but had little hope of making a click. This little bird some call bark mouse, is about the size of your thumb. It forages by scaling up and down tree trunks looking for minute bugs. With the massive wind storm that hit Magee two years back, the trunks the creepers scale are no longer tall putting them within range. Schweet!

With the biggest challenges being overcome it left just one, the light. The creepers were keeping to the dark recesses of the forest, not ideal for photographs at all. Luckily I had my own light with me, the Profoto A10 attached to the Z 9 / Z400f4.5 rig. I just kissed the Brown Creeper with light, just enough to bring out its color, not enough to even create a shadow and that’s all it took to bring it out of the shadows. As it turned out there were a pair of Brown Creepers. I thought chasing the one at The Ranch was a challenge, I never tried photographing a mating pair. I was greedy and wanted that frame with two creepers in it. I never got it but I had a ton of fun as they ran me ragged!