Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused

Every Friday, the fine folk over at The Daily Post issue a weekly photo challenge. This weeks challenge is Unfocused. 

Unfocused. You may curse or cheer this week’s theme. We’re looking for that picture which is unfocused. It may be completely intentional, or accidental. You might have thought about trashing it, but in the end it definitely conveys something.

I wish I could say this was a hard challenge, but sadly I have more unfocused photos then sharp ones! I am pretty sure my name is Rhianna “Unfocused” Blackthorn. I hope you will enjoy this selection of “work” photos.

Over the summer, I did a few surveys of wildlife around the university campus. The idea of my work was to present hard data to management to encourage them to adopt a strong wildlife conservation and management strategy.  One of the surveys I did was koalas. It never ceases to amaze me that there are so many on campus and yet people don’t even know they are there. People fail at looking up, it seems! This juvenile was quite interested in me and what I was doing so he came down to a low limb to check me out. A sudden increase in spectators spooked him a little so he retreated to a higher limb.

So just what is in this photo, you might be asking. It’s so unfocused that it is quite hard to make out, but these are Eastern Brown Snake hatchlings making their way into the world, breaking free of their eggs. This clutch was taken into care when their egg mound was accidentally disturbed by builders. They were hatched in captivity and released into the wild a few days later.

Many thanks to the volunteers who risk life and limb to save animals such as this. It is no small task given that these little babies are the second most venomous land snake known to man and have enough venom at this moment to kill a dozen men.

A few years ago I had to do an assignment on birds for biology. Now, I am not a bird fancier, so to me a bird has feathers (which disgusts me) and may or may not be snake food. Nevertheless, I happened across this little wren, and had to snap off some photos. I know it looks like a superb wren, but I also know there are quite a few subtle differences; I am fairly confident that it’s an undefined subspecies which we have affectionately named Sparks Wren (after Joe).

Imagine my disgust when I got home and loaded them into the computer and found them all to be unfocused! Oh well, any excuse to go back into the field is a good one…

Last photo for today actually comes from the survey work I mentioned above. I was also doing a reptile survey on campus and had come across the remains of a few small birds and reptiles. I decided to set up a stills camera trap with nocturnal capabilities to see what was killing the critters. When this photo was snapped off by the automatic camera, the mystery was solved. Let this be a lesson to you at home; if you must have a cat, keep it inside of a night. Kitty goes from super cute to super killer at sun down!

For my regular readers, the photos on my food blog Rhianna’s Guide to Ethical Eating is different from the post here! It’s quite a culinary adventure and I hope you will enjoy it.

Related articles

• Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused (dailypost.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused (mizrhi.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused (motherwifestudentworker.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused (brittenasplund.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused (hurtlingtowards60.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused (mdcphotographs.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused (getawayzzz.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused (arindammohapatra.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused (thetaskmistress.me)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: unfocused (elspethc.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused (3rdculturechildren.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused (taochildseyes.wordpress.com)
• Weekly Photo Challenge: Unfocused (teaseainc.com)