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We were usually so close that I had to settle for head-shots! 😉 Mingo Raccoons

A couple times we came across a mom with up to four youngsters. It was in ditch number five that we encountered our first of several groups of raccoon. But, this would turn out to be the case on several run-ins with wildlife throughout the day. As I mentioned above, this proved to be almost heartbreaking, as I have never experienced “having too much lens” in a wildlife photography situation. Covering the extremes of focal lengths, I brought a wide-angle zoom and a fixed 400mm f5.6. To save space in the dry bag inside the canoe, I brought only two lenses on this trip. Other birds of note in our list, which grew to near 60 species by the end of the day, were Acadian Flycatchers, Yellow-billed Cuckoos, Wood Duck, Yellow Warbler, and Canada Geese. Not knowing how long I might have, I burned through nearly half a memory card before being satisfied. We were able to glide right under this spectacular bird without disturbing it. This was my first experience of the fact that Steve had previously explained wildlife react differently to humans in the water than they do to people on land (a learning that caused me considerable agitation throughout the day). In less than fifteen minutes we spotted our first wildlife find of the day, this perched Mississippi Kite. We were in the water within ditch number five by a little after 08:00, paddling slowly northward towards Monopoly Marsh, the true Wilderness of Mingo. Arriving at Steve’s promptly at 05:30, I found he already had his Dagger Legend canoe tied into his tiny Toyota Tacoma – a somewhat comical appearance. On what was to turn out to be a perfect July day, I was on the road at 04:00, breaking my fast with an apple, granola bar, and French press that I prepared the night before.

The opportunity to do so during what might be considered the most mildly pleasant summer of our lives made the decision easy. Getting familiar with Mingo, which lies near Puxico in south-east Missouri, had been near the top of my list for sometime. The only questions were, “where to put in?” and “how to find the time to do so?” Because we found ourselves near the halfway mark of the summer season, we knew the favored Ozark streams would potentially be packed with the pop-top kind of crowds. We had been anxious to get Steve’s newly acquired canoe wet for sometime.