How To Shoot an Armadillo

You might think this is a picture of an armadillo. You’re wrong. This is a picture of determination.

Or desperation. It could be that.

I took this photograph beside a trail I walk a few times a week. The past two months, I’ve seen armadillos out there almost every time I go. That is, every time except when I bring my camera.

At first it was funny. I’d tell my husband, “The armadillos are shy. They hide when they see the camera.” But after two months of that it started to seem less funny and more strange. Surely they couldn’t know when I had the camera. It had to be a coincidence—except how could it be when it happened every single time?

I started trying to trick them. I’d bring the camera but wear it slung around behind me, trying to forget about it. No luck. I’d bring the camera but stick it in a bag so they wouldn’t know what it was. They were smarter than that. I’d get frustrated and give up and go walking without the camera. Then there were armadillos everywhere, prancing right beside the path, silently laughing at me.

I started to think about shooting them with something more lethal than a camera.

Psychologists call this magical thinking—the idea that our thoughts or actions control things they couldn’t possibly control. I tried to remember I was giving the armadillos way too much credit, that this was coincidence, but as time went on it got harder to believe.

Finally, yesterday, I determined I was going to shoot an armadillo no matter what. I took my camera, and I walked the path slowly. I didn’t see any armadillos, but going slowly I could hear one snuffling through the undergrowth back off the path. It was time to hunt him down.

I’d tried tracking one into the woods before and only succeeded in scaring him away, so I decided to be sneakier this time. I found a downed tree near where I heard him, so I scaled my way along the trunk, arms out for balance, wishing I’d stayed in gymnastics longer. It worked, though. I wasn’t crackling any leaves, and I snuck up on the cheeky bugger before he knew it.

Snap! Click! Whatever you call the noise a camera makes, it was louder than I’d expected. It alerted the armadillo to my presence. He sat up, I grabbed a couple more quick shots, and he jumped straight in the air before zooming off like a cartoon character. He looked so funny it startled me into falling from the tree trunk, scaring a lizard that had been at my feet. I hurried back to the trail before he could try to sell me car insurance.

But I was triumphant! The picture you see is my trophy, a near-perfect shot of an awfully weird-looking critter. That photograph is the proof of my determination.

Or my desperation. I’ll leave that determination up to you.