Steve Moseley takes a selfie in his tool shed/blind.

A male northern flicker woodpecker perches on a bird bath.

Photo courtesy Steve Moseley

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In wildlife photography as in life, oftentimes we must settle.

Case in point: Recently, unable to greet the morning on a grand loop tour of, say, the Bighorns, Beartooths and Absarokas, I settled for Good Wife Norma’s backyard habitat, employing her garden shed for a chintzy, make-do photo blind here in the tall corn country (until the inevitable pre-harvest hail) of eastern Nebraska.

Sometimes, when a halting gait and creaking joints are compounded by congenital sloth and a residential geography handicap, chintzy must suffice.

So, as the accompanying selfie makes evident, I settled into a comfy patio chair just inside among the tools, door open to the feeders and bird bath downrange. The gentle, rising sun bathed everything in luxurious light.

In front of me on a tripod, an old Nikon D7200 snapped onto an equally geriatric Nikon 500mm, f4 prime lens and 1.4 teleconverter. With the camera’s built-in crop sensor, I had serious telephoto poop at my disposal.

I soon settled into the chair and cool air, there to sip coffee, surf my phone and wait.

A multitude of locations offer more exotic prospects than the backyard … Red Grade Road in the Bighorns for moose in late summer for one … but what our yard lacks in excitement is compensated by ease of access.

The animals to see there are nothing special — sparrows, house finches, bluejays, robins, turtle doves and their noisy, invasive, quail-sized European collared dove cousins, the rare cardinal, assorted unidentifiable — at least by me — LBBs (Little Brown Birds) and a family of squirrels to glean the leavings on the ground beneath the banquet.

Still, this male northern flicker woodpecker at the bird bath, about to drink his fill and have a bath, was a special treat. The first of its kind to visit since I, myself, have been perched out there observing.

Fascinating insects? Boku. Captured some tasty close-up images of a praying mantis a couple summers ago. A 90mm, 2.8, 1-to-1 macro lens made cropping unnecessary with that guy.

But even if common, I think they’re still kinda cute. Fun to sneak up on and look at through the glass.

But … only until those Dead Swede bull moose are in full velvet. Then it’s tweety-birds be hanged. Time to point the ’99 Burb with the RSTBUKT license plates west.

(Contact stevemoseley42@gmail.com)