Did you hear that!?! If you just heard a huge sigh of relief loud enough to be heard from the Netherlands, that would be me successfully putting a cap on one of the busiest two months I have experienced in a looooong time. The Annual Halloween Cookout is officially in the books (all the decorations are officially dried out, packed and stowed away), the 4 scheduled Half Marathon medals are hanging on the wall, the new well is awaiting final health inspection and as of Wednesday night, my presentation to the local Peoria Camera Club was given. Whew, that blurb sure doesn’t sound as difficult as it was to get all those checked off the to-do list. All of those tasks had been outlined in previous posts, with the exception of the presentation. The president of the Camera Club (Julie) attended my presentation to the local Audubon Society Chapter earlier in the year (link here). After that talk she offered up the opportunity to come and speak to the camera club. Honored to be considered, I quickly accepted and began fretting about it almost immediately. At the Audubon speech, I was in a room full of better birders and likely better photographers. In the new setting I was among a room full of better photographers and likely better birders. Definitely more comfortable in the former being a self-learned photographer. When Julie reached out with the October date, my heart skipped a beat and immediately went to work revamping the Birding Texas Gulf Coast talk to focus on the photography aspects. Apprehension remained up until the point the lights went down and the slide show started. Ended up running out of time to get through all the bird detail (due to favoring camera setup, field philosophies etc), but the audience seemed to enjoy the talk and received a lot of good comments afterward. Also got to talk to a few of them later thanks to a chance decision afterward to catch a bite to eat at the same place. Again, extremely honored to have the chance to present my craft to them and to meet a wonderful group of similar enthusiasts. Huge appreciation to Julie for making all that happen.
While preparing for this speech, I noticed a picture was included of a bird I had not featured on the blog yet – and by definition, one that did not have the official check by it on the bird list. This seemed like the perfect time to remedy that!
Hit the Jump to find out what this new addition is!
