Wildlife: Raccoon Files: NextGen 1, 2 by DreamOfSpring

DreamOfSpring wrote:
Friday & Sat nights I had a blast with the kits. I've just not found time to write about it yet. On Friday night I took my camera out with me and tried really hard to get some good pics. Sadly, while I did get some pics, all of the really adorable moments alluded me. Either I didn't get the camera up in time or the shutter was too slow to close or the camera messed up entirely either over or under exposing what might otherwise have been a keeper.

It's much harder than it sounds to both interact with the kits and photograph them at the same time. They move quickly. They don't pose and wait for me to shoot. There are 3 of them, 4 if you count the mom, and they all want everything at the same time. If I give one a cookie, I can't just sit there taking pics as she eats it, I have to pass out cookies to all of the others. They are children, after all. By the time I do all of that, I've missed the shot. Then I see something else, but before I can swing the camera around and wake it up, argh, missed another shot. And so it goes.

None of the pics I got were at all special. Here is one showing 2 of the kits, 3 if you count the ears in back. The one looking up at me is the really shy one having finally come forward. They are right beside me, closer than they appear, so close that my own right leg presented a major obstacle to camera placement. Camera tricks have expanded the gap so that it appears larger, but there were only maybe 4in between my leg and the wheel barrow, the light colored thing to the right. The wheel barrow is an off-white color which also wreaked havoc with my efforts to take pics at that close angle. The 2nd pic is a kit thoroughly engrossed in his enjoyment of sugar (a cookie).