I love nature photography. One of the best things about it is that it can always surprise you. It can surprise you in so many different ways.

You might see a flower in a different color you’ve never seen before. Maybe a tree you have walked by countless times is flowering and you have never before seen it flower. Or maybe migrating birds show up at your local park.

Today I was out in my yard photographing the wildflowers and had one of the coolest surprises.

I walked around the yard noticing the different flowers in bloom. Some of the perennials I had planted were already flowering. And a variety of wildflowers were growing now.

I tried to pay particular attention to the flowers I had not seen much or at all. Or at least had not seen in our yard. We have been rewilding some parts of our yard, so there are more flowers this year than in the past.

Into the woods

After walking around the yard I decided to head out to our little patch of woods behind our house. I was really hoping to see some of the same wildflowers we saw on our recent hike of the Abbott Loop on the Finger Lakes Trail. I didn’t have my camera on me during that hike. So I didn’t get any photos of those beautiful flowers.

I had never noticed those particular flowers in our woods, but it is very possible that I simply had not happen to be out in our woods at the right time of year to see them. Some wildflowers are very specific to the time of year and do not bloom for very long. Wildflowers are easy to miss if the timing isn’t just right.

I walked o one end of the woods without much luck. Very few flowers. Nothing that I was looking for. On my way back to the house, but still in the woods I stopped to photograph what I think was a good sized wild blueberry bush.

What’s that?

After I stood up and started to go back to the house I noticed some motion out of my peripheral vision. I looked to see what it was. I wasn’t sure, but it was big and brown.

I kept looking. It was a bear. A smallish black bear. The bear was just moseying through the woods moving parallel to me but in the opposite direction. Paying no attention to me whatsoever.

I watched the bear from where I was. Making sure to respect the bears space and not bother them. I kept watching the bear. Giving them plenty of space. They looked like they were headed in the direction of the road, so I walked out of the woods onto the road anticipating its direction.

Shortly after I was on the road, the bear emerged from the woods on the side of the road. The bear wasn’t too large. About the height of a mailbox. Not too hefty.

The bear looked right at me, but did not care. They just kept doing what bears do. I did what I do. That is take photos. I didn’t have the lens I would have wanted, but I had a camera and that was all that mattered.

The bear crossed the road in front of my not really paying much attention to me. My neighbor said they have been seeing a similar, maybe the same bear, regularly lately.

This is the first time I have ever seen a beer while I have been out in the woods walking around anywhere. It was such a beautiful experience.

Go outside. Take photos. You never know what you might see. You might go outside expecting to photograph flowers and end up photographing a bear.

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