Out of the hundreds of thousands of emails per month we receive here at Toronto Wildlife, the theme of most could be summed up as "I never see any of this stuff." And indeed, if you click through the entries here you might get the impression that every park and green area of the city is packed thick with wildlife, as jammed up as the first ten rows at a Justin Bieber concert. You might get the impression you can't miss.
Of course, there is tons of life out there. The mistake is thinking it's anxious to be part of photo op.
To illustrate: a Toronto Wildlife fail.
Early this year I became aware of a family of foxes somewhere in the city. Certainly not the only family of foxes in Toronto, but I knew exactly where these were and the area where they'd made their home was a small one. I figured it would be like shooting fish in a barrel, so to speak.
One spring morning at dawn I went to this spot. Within two minutes I saw a fox. Awesome, right? The fox was just sitting there catching some early morning rays but was behind some grass. I couldn't get a clean shot. It was there perhaps ten seconds or less. It eyed me. Then left.
A little voice in my head, said: Great, I saw a fox after less than two minutes. Now I'll never see one here again.
You know what? I never did.
Oh, that family was still there all right. I heard of others who'd spotted them. And this really is a small area, not much bigger than a football field in fact. I went back ten times. Twenty. Thirty. I told myself, okay I give up, and then I'd go one more time anyhow figuring that if I no longer had any expectation of seeing the foxes they'd show up. Except they still didn't.
A fashion photographer can fire off six hundred images of a model over two hours and end up with three keepers. If you're a wildlife photographer your model will be available for a few seconds (if you're lucky). Your model won't pose. Every shot you see here or from any wildlife photographer is from that brief moment when he or she got lucky. You don't see the times they weren't. Except for now, that is.
