Black Friday for Wildlife

While hordes of shoppers stormed the shopping malls along Westnedge Avenue in Portage, Michigan this past weekend, I was literally a block away walking along the Portage Bicentennial Trail in search of wildlife. And I might as well have been in a parallel universe given the contrast.

While the rest of humanity was possessed by their material wants (and perhaps some justifiable needs) I was able to capture a couple of fellow creatures completely caught up in their diligent pursuit of some life essentials: A red squirrel packing up on protein for the winter and a pileated woodpecker either hammering away at grub, or chiseling away at a future nest-hole.

That's one of the great gifts of wildlife photography and observation: reminding ourselves of the core essentials of survival and how so much of the material accumulation of life is really just clutter and distraction.