Opening the Bathing Season

Despite very changeable weather this April, Aramis has decided that it was time to open this year’s bathing season.

When he spots a large enough pool of water, my sheepdog miraculously morphs into a retriever and impatiently waits for sticks and toys to be thrown.

They say that if you are serious about photography you should never take a picture around midday, in direct sunlight or of a wet dog. Either I or they can’t be serious. I feel like a rebel.

What cracks me up in the pictures above is his serious expression while sporting the most ridiculous tail.

It makes me so happy to see Aramis so confident and joyful around water. When I got him, he wouldn’t go anywhere near water and was so terrified of it that he would not even drink in my presence. It did not take particularly long for him to understand that water was not as dangerous as he thought and soon was fine with it touching his feet, but it took several years and a lot of practice until he was ready to learn how to swim. Now he cannot get enough of swimming and diving, but each year, during winter, he seems to regress a little: every time I take him for his first swim in spring, he needs a few minutes to find his confidence again and to adjust to the thought that he is capable of it.

There was a fair amount of seabirds too. With my 200mm lens I cannot get particularly close, of course, but was surprised that I still managed to get a couple of nice shots of these gulls.

Ducks do not seem to have been made for flying. The noise they make in the process is overly theatrical and the way they land makes you wonder how they manage not to break their necks each and every time they try.

The feathered fellows below, Great Crested Grebes, seemed a lot more settled and elegant in their ways.