I love to take photographs, I love to bird, I love old cemetaries, I love to take photos of birds in old cemetaries. Today I hit the Trifecta (or is that a quadfecta?) in Alexandria, VA. I went for a walk in search of the Alexandria National Cemetary founded by Abraham Lincoln as one of several created for the remains and in the memory of Civil War Veterans (eventually expanding to veterans of other wars). What I found was a warren of cemetaries sited side by side, fence to fence. Episcopal, Methodist, Jewish, Quaker (I think), presbyterian and then finally the National cemetary. Gravestones date from the late 1700s to 2008, the interwoven history of the peoples who lived or ended up in Alexandria.
It was a gray, muted day. Only a few dogs and their owners were out. Oh dogs and robins and squirrels. Hundreds of Robins! So in watching for the "ideal" robin on a gravestone shot, I hear the chatterburr of a belted kingfisher. What? I say. That means water somewhere. Yep, adjacent to the National Cemetary runs Hooff's Run...a small creek with a historic stone bridge. And next to the bridge on a bush almost under the bridge was a noisy, fluffy adolescent mockingbird nagging its hard working parent for more food! Quite funny...you could almost see it stamping its little foot!
So what is it that I love. Taking photos and looking for birds both make me slow down, stop, listen, watch, take time, breathe. I notice things I would never normally notice as I barrel through life. I take the time to think and process. And with photos I have the opprotunity to revisit the experience after the fact sometimes seeing things in the photo I even missed the first time.
