I let my dog out into the backyard one evening, and noticed that a mourning dove was fluttering around, acting like it had a broken wing, but the act wasn't terribly convincing. She fluttered away, and I looked more closely around the yard, and could barely make out this baby dove lying in the grass. The mother was trying to distract us from her baby. I kept my dog away, grabbed a camera and flash, and took this picture. Though the flash almost makes it look like daytime, that's deceiving. Focusing was quite difficult, because it was dark enough for the stars to be out when I took this photo. I could make out a highlight in her eye from the reflection of a distant streetlight, and used that as my guide to focusing.
The baby stayed out there in that exact position just outside my bedroom window all night. Around dawn, the mother woke me up, calling as she came back and got her chick.
Date: June 30, 2003.
Camera: Nikon F3
Lens: 105mm f2.8 Micro-Nikkor
Film: Kodak Plus-X
Lighting: Sunpak 383 flash on lightstand above the bird
Exposure: 1/80 at f16 indicated, (f22 effective after extension)
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