This past Sunday’s lil’ local loop, as usual, hit familiar territory. I hadn’t taken out the F80 since June and I wanted to make sure it was still reliable and the batteries good.

I like taking these more modern cameras out in the winter, since they are light, have more plastic (so you don’t freeze to them), and I don’t mind them getting a little snowy. The fully-auto (or mostly-auto) modes also help because my hands cannot stay warm for the life of me, and auto focus and auto wind help quite a bit, making it all usable in mittens.

Finally, of the modern cameras I have (i.e. 1990s, 2000s), I find that the F80’s metering handles snowy scenes the best, so it tends to come with me quite a lot during this season.

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On our way home after picking up groceries, we heard the oddest sound coming from the trees. It almost sounded like a frog, croaking away. I stopped on the sidewalk to listen again, when Kathleen heard it too.

We then looked up and saw a magnificent raven perched on one of the apartments. In addition to this new-to-us sound it made, it was easily the size of Martha (our smaller cat) and had the shiniest feathers we’ve ever seen!

As we kept walking, it flew along with us, from tree-to-tree, until it stopped atop a utility pole above where another raven was picking through the trash behind a McDonald’s.

Of course, it gave another croak or two, and the other raven (photographed above) flew off.

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