No, not water (though there is a lot in the photo above, both liquid and vapor); the ingredient I’m thinking of is necessary to photography. Light, both natural and man made is present at different times in Forest Park. Because it’s an urban park, there are street lights, lights in the parking lots and lights in and illuminating the outside of the buildings in the park.

There is also a lot of man-made light from the city that surrounds the park, and when there is a low cloud cover (as there is today) that light reflects onto the park giving the sky a strange orange glow.

When Austen and I parked the Powerful Luxury Automobile (our 1986 Cadillac) next to Kennedy Forest it already seemed like twilight (though it was only just six o’clock). Carrying a tripod and umbrella (just in case) we set out in search of whatever it was we were looking for. Austen spied it first.

“Raccoon! Over there!”

I scanned the ground before me. “Over where?”

“Over there!” he replied in the same not-very-specific way people tend to point things out.

I finally saw where it was and we gave chase. The raccoon didn’t notice us coming until we were almost on top of him and when he did see us, he took off up a nearby tree. I circled the tree for a few photos while he climbed to a perch where he felt comfortable and then ignored us.

Our traipse through the woods netted us one good bird photo before we emerged looking for opportunities with more light.

We met a friend by the grand basin, watched a dozen or so egrets cavort, soar, and splash, crept up on a green heron, and said hello to Moe, the adolescent owl. Then a representative of the Owl Protective Association (OPA - they always serve saganaki at their meetings) appeared and joined our wildlife survey group.

We saw Black-crowned night herons fly over, a great blue heron in the shallows of PD Lake and what Mark Glenshaw (our OPA man) suggested was a night hawk flitting here and there. Then Sara appeared and broke up the party (we realized at that point we were between her and her young, and the great horned owl can be a bit aggressive in a situation such as that). Oh, and did I mention the bats? We did get a few photos.