Sometimes, you don’t get the shot, but the experience is what matters.

Yesterday I was shooting at Kirby Park on Elkhorn Slough. Throughout the day I had been fighting focusing issues. When trying to focus on a distant object against the sky, the camera tries to focus on something close but nonexistent.

Yes, I should switch to manual, but I am just not that fast anymore.

Then I see two birds coming toward me. Hello, who are you, I look through the viewfinder and it goes from sharp to fuzzy. Less than a second later there is a swoosh, swoosh as two falcons pull up out of dives within fifteen feet of me. I think they were going for swallows.

I watched them as they headed off across the tide flats hunting and diving as they went.

It would have been a cool shot, but even my camera isn’t going to catch a falcon coming towards you that fast.

All I have is the experience of falcons flying so close and fast that you can hear the wind on their wings.

I can live with that.