I was inspired by a new blogger friend, Bambang (Bams) Triwoko, to create a post for this Word a Week Challenge: Angle. I don’t know whether I can put a new angle on it, but I will come at it from my perspective. Angle makes all the difference in photography. When I’m just looking at something, I don’t necessarily walk around checking all the angles like I do now when I want to take a photograph.
Last week my husband brought me a present – a bluejay egg that had fallen out of its nest in our trellis. It felt surprisingly heavy for such a tiny egg. I decided I should take pictures of it, so I took it outside and began my search for just the right angle.
The first angle I always resort to is whatever hits my eye level without having to climb up onto a rickety ladder or lay down on the ground, or sit in a cow pie. Then I do the lazy thing, and adjust the zoom lens.
However, there next thing I think of is shooting up at an object, preferably getting an angle with something else interesting in the process. In this case the little bistro table on our porch made the perfect angles you see in this picture, but it wasn’t particularly interesting as far as the bird was concerned. Then as I was looking up at the egg from underneath the table, it seemed like the egg moved.
Next, I started walking from one side to another, and in this case I could also manipulate the egg. When I started doing all that I noticed the holes in the egg that I had not noticed when Vince gave me the egg. That, along with the rocking motion, made me look at the egg from an entirely new angle. What if this bird hatched? What would happen to it? Would the parents take care of it after I had touched it? What do baby birds eat? I moved the potential baby to the bark chips under the trellis. From this angle you can really see the size of the egg compared to a small bark chip.
With the knowledge that “this egg was alive” angle in mind, I raced to the computer and googled baby blue jays and found out that you can soak cat food and hand feet it to newly hatched blue jays (and other birds). Someone else fed oatmeal to baby birds. One comment gave the number for Southern Calif. wildlife hotline: 866-945-3911. When I called that number I got three numbers for the Fresno area, and I called the first two and they were off for the weekend. The third number was a Click and Clack kind of wildlife guy. He should have his own radio broadcast. He was so helpful, AND funny. I laughed out loud as we talked about this poor bird’s possible fates – sorry Autty, some of them were not too positive. Actually from almost any angle, this baby’s prospects were not good.
What I did learn from Click was that blue jays have no sense of smell. They aren’t going to ignore their baby bird because I touched it. Birds won’t know the difference. His advice to me was to put it back in the nest. So I did. Inside the nest was hair, lots of it – probably mine! It was soft inside the nest. I felt good about the angle I had taken on blue jay restoration.
I’d just saved a precious life. Way to go, Marsha! Chalk up points! Vince came in the next morning to inform me that he found a broken egg. I climbed up on my rickety ladder to check the nest – empty. Bad angle, and I didn’t photograph it.
Marsha Ingrao - Always Write 
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