Today I was photographing in Merkle Wildlife Sanctuary, which is located in Marlboro, Maryland. Denise and Lydia were at Six Flags, Maryland, but since I am not one who enjoys amusement parks, I was encouraged to leave them alone. It was hot; real hot!
The dragonflies didn’t mind the heat at all. They were flying around, chasing each other, and once in a while landed on a stalk of grass. I was not able to catch any in-air flights, but I did get a lot of photos of the dragonflies.
Later on I found a groundhog where I first saw a nice den. These critters can do an awful lot of damage to farm equipment like wagons when a wheel is swallowed up by one of these dens. Here at the wildlife sanctuary the groundhog is left alone and allowed to keep his deep-holed den. I first spotted him when I was quite a ways from him–maybe about 30 yards. I slowly, ever so slowly and casually, move quietly closer. One slow step after the other brought me closer and closer. I don’t know if wearing my camo shirt helped or not, but he didn’t move as I inched closer. This groundhog seemed like a model of sorts as it was positioned on his haunches looking around.
Here are some photos I captured today.
That must be a wonderful place to spend some time with the cameras. There was a lot of dairy farming in my area when I was younger and there were a lot of groundhogs. I guess they are still there, but we no longer have the vast number of clover and alfalfa fields to attract the large numbers to one spot. I still see them quite a bit in a food plot I plant in clover. I used to shoot a lot of them each year, but only shoot them with the camera now, but like you say they can be very destructive when they are in the wrong area.