Now You See Them...

This has to be one of the worst pictures I've ever taken on purpose, that I would absolutely not consider deleting:

In the left hand side of the picture, the mouse is facing off-screen to the left.  The white is the lower part of the face, with the black eye directly above it.  It was moving a lot, so extra blurry.

In case you can't tell (and let's be honest, how could I expect you to?), it's a grasshopper mouse.  You've probably never heard of them, which is fair enough because their obscure little beasts.  Obscure, but awesome.  They stalk and kill their prey (often grasshoppers and other insects, but sometimes small vertebrates, including other mice).  They are territorial.  They howl at the moon like little wolves.  They are easily one of the coolest rodents that you've never heard of (check out this video footage from National Geographic).

The pictured specimen - photographed during a recent trip to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum - is the only one I've ever seen.  I had to revisit the enclosure three times and ask a keeper for advice on where to look (confession: I was hoping she would sense my interest and take me in the back to meet it) before I got this glimpse.  It was a nocturnal exhibit.  The glare was awful.  For all of my professed love of photography, I've never invested in a quality camera.  This is all I've got to remember it by.

When I visit friends at other zoos, they often seem bemused by my obsession with photographic their most obscure animals, the ones you can't see anywhere else.  I've made pilgrimages to Cincinnati Zoo for the Sumatran rhino, Cheyenne Mountain Zoo for mountain tapir, and San Diego Zoo for pangolin.  During a recent visit to Saint Augustine Alligator Farm, I spent half of my visit crouched by a small water feature waiting for a bronze-winged duck to paddle into view.  I'm irate that three visits to the Bronx Zoo have still resulted in zero sightings of their ring-tailed mongoose.  Georgia Aquarium is on my list for whale sharks.

Part of it is because I have a poor visual memory and can't recall images very well - my camera is my memory, in a sense.  The main part is that I'm afraid that if I don't see (and document) the animal then, I'll loose my chance.  We're living in the midst of an extinction crisis, and species are disappearing across the globe.  Many species are also phasing out of zoo and aquarium collections to help ensure the survival and sustainability of other populations.

I remember when digital cameras weren't a thing yet, and film was precious.  There were plenty of photos I didn't take.  Even after starting in the field and getting a digital camera, I had a tendency to think that I'd always see another specimen later, I could take another picture later.  I wish I could go back to photograph a corsac fox at the Mill Mountain Zoo, a tricolored monitor lizard at the Dallas Zoo, a black wildebeest or European bison at the San Diego Zoo Safari Park, or a bearded vulture at the San Diego Zoo.  I missed those chances, and now all I have are somewhat blurry memories.

I'm determined not to miss anymore chances, which is why I photograph everything these days, to the point where I have over 1,500 species of bird, mammal, reptile, and amphibian in my photo collection (plus sorted fish and invertebrates).