We got out of bed early today, all excited to go photograph the Swift Foxes nearby again. I made instant coffee to go and J started a mug of tea steeping. There was a thin layer of clouds and no wind — great conditions for Swift Fox photography! We had left the blind where it was yesterday afternoon and evening because the view of the den was so good, and we would take what we got with the backlit conditions this morning. The light cloud layer would help produce some nice diffuse light. :)

We entered the blind around 6:35 and I had Clif Bars for breakfast. I used my right thumb to enter text on my Palm Treo 755p for the first time since spraining it, and there wasn't any discomfort. (You may read about my sprained right thumb on the blog entry for May 22, 2010.) The first Swift Fox came up out of the den around 7:20, and we were treated to an hour and a half of some wonderful behavior that we were able to capture. I got a nice full-body image of a kit (below left) and some images of the kits playing with each other (below right). The kits were just so cute!


We returned to the RV around 9:15. I downselected the images I took then downselected them in iView. I processed two images for the blog, then started to work up a blog entry. Then I processed two more images for the same blog entry and finished the text for it.

I had my usual ham-and-Swiss on rye sandwich for lunch around noon that I made myself — my right thumb is getting back to normal. :) I called MacMall to resolve a problem with the order I placed for an iPad. It looks like it won't ship out as soon as I thought it would. :( I started to downselect the images from this morning in Capture One (C1). J took a nap around 2:30 and the wind started picking up around 3:00. After J got out of bed, I fixed the gas strut that had broken in one of our kitchen cabinets.

We went out to the blind around 5:15 and waited. We had dinner in the blind of a Bumble Bee Tuna Salad and Crackers for each of us then two Clif Bars for me and a box of Cracker Jack for J. We waited some more. And we waited. And we waited. The light was getting really nice, and no Swift Foxes. We waited some more. The vixen came out around 7:05, and we were treated to an hour of fantastic shooting opportunities! It was nearly orgasmic! The vixen nursed the kits on our side of the den (below left), and I wished I had had a shorter lens to capture it. The 500 f4 was too long, and I didn't have my 100-400 with me. :( The vixen's teats were bloody after she finished nursing — the little guys were really rough on her and she was extremely patient. She didn't even mind one of the kits biting on her ear in play (below right)! :)


After the sun went down behind a hill, we mostly watched because the light level was so low. However, I couldn't resist taking a few images when the behavior was interesting. The vixen was so comfortable that she had curled up to take a nap by the den. When she yawned, she pointed her head directly at me (left). A little later, she went down into the den and we packed up.

We returned to the RV around 8:15. I downloaded the images I took tonight, then downselected them in iView then Capture One (C1). It was an awesome day of photography!