I’ve tried for a day now, and I still have no idea how to best blurt excitedly about my Saturday. While some of my pj bretheren were doing things like covering the UGA-Bama game this Saturday, or even going because the lucky knuckleheads got tickets, I was doing something way cooler.
I got my own Disney Princess Moment.
As I pulled in the driveway Saturday morning after shooting UGA’s first home cross country meet in four years, William, who’ been standing outside our back door, flags me down with the news that DUDE there are BABY CHIPMUNKS like RIGHT THERE and they’re just hanging out being all cute and stuff and they’re not afraid at all!
Good nature photography can be hard work. There are different modes of getting the shots, the worst of which including setting up blinds days ahead of time and going out at 3 am covered in deer pee and sitting for 8 hours waiting for something to lollygag by. While results of such can be rewarding, I prefer the Oh You Lucky Bastard method. When combined with something as undeniably cute as a baby chipmunk…
I left my truck idling, jumped out with my camera and 80-200, because I figured even if they were 7 feet away, we wouldn’t get much closer than that. Where I grew up, the chipmunks were notoriously skittish.
I was barefoot because my shoes got soaked at the meet, and I stepped on something sharp, but it didn’t stop me in my pursuit of critter photojournalism. I could just smell the story…”A Day in the Life of Some Baby Chipmunks Running Around the Driveway We Share With our Neighbors.” Ha.
I got some frames, and slowly got closer, as the critters seemed not to be bothered by mine or my abnormally large hippie roommate’s presence in the slightest.
And then one runs up on my foot and licks it.
And then I almost died.
