Eagle Bluffs: A Stone's Throw from Home

Yesterday morning, after a year and nine months living in Columbia Missouri, I decided to drive a mere 17 miles alone down to Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area on the Missouri River. On a Sunday morning I would hav the place pretty much to myself.

It rained on my parade, but I can get there next time without confusion (Apple maps sent me to a maintenance shed the first pass) and I will stay all day and explore.

The area consists of more than 4400 acres of intentional flooded and sustained wetlands--after nearly 90% of the states historical wetlands have been lost to agricultural and river use “management” practices.

Here is an informative excerpt from the Conservation Department website:

The wetland management infrastructure includes 30 miles of levees, 61 water control structures, river water supply pumps, a water supply junction box, pump-out facilities, and a pipeline linking the area to the City of Columbia’s wastewater treatment wetlands.

The City of Columbia and the Department of Conservation entered into a cooperative agreement that allows the Department to use treated wastewater from the city as a primary water source for the wetlands. The city’s recycled wastewater provides a near constant source of water, but river pumps can supplement the water supply when the area’s needs exceed the flow from the city.

The area’s 17 wetland pools allow the flooding of 1,100 acres of moist soil marshes, emergent marshes, and crop fields. These marshes provide year-round habitat for migrating and wintering birds and permanent wildlife and excellent wildlife viewing and hunting opportunities.

You can probably imagine my delight, creeping round the bend at 10 mph and seeing this ankle-deep pond at feeding time. In this view, find 8 Great Blue Herons and 8 Common Egrets feeding casually, undisturbed by my presence. I eased the window down and got the shot as the rain decided it was with me for the day.

But no surprise reading the clouds moving over me—-the asperitas type— where “chaotic atmospheric gravity waves and wind shear pass through a layer of unstable air, usually associated with convective thunderstorm activity.” It was headed my way. I didn’t have much time.

But I much preferred overcast and drizzle to full June sunshine. The wet air belongs here brooding above the saturated native skin of this lush extravagance of reeds and rushes, algae and life in a submerged and reliably water-soaked soil.

From the wide view of the crowded pond up top I was able to extract a composition of two egrets. You can see the spatter of raindrops on the surface of the pond. I was at least at that point able to roll down the window and awkwardly compose the shot.

Panasonic Lumix FZ200 Eagle Bluffs in the rain

But soon after the “group shot” the rains came in earnest and I took a few disappointing frames through the rain-spattered glass. I did, however, come away with an image I could modify artificially to provide a subject suitable perhaps for my first watercolor.

The shot is mine, but the image clarity through the wet windshield was disappointing. But my AI genie took the blur and offered me a pastel rendering I envisioned that picks up the dreamy quality of the reflections of the standing and flying herons.

DO I ALREADY OWN MY LAST CAMERA?

The Panasonic Lumix FZ200, vintage 2012, might be as far as I go. It often disappoints me. I have not yet determined how much of that is user failure, but the results typically leave me not 100% satisfied.

Does a 78 year old duffer need an expensive camera for the few times he’ll have subjects worthy of the hardware? The jury is out.

After deciding positively NO to this question last week and spending hours studying up again on the FZ200, I keep coming back to the Nikon Z50 II Mirrorless Camera with 16-50mm and 50-250mm Lenses.

But in the end, after I enjoy the camera package for an indeterminate number of months or years, wouldn’t it be a nice thing to leave for my heirs—which is the same rationalization I used when upgrading the Subaru in October? Win-win. Right?