Serendipity

Yesterday morning, I was reading my forum where we talk about a live safari in South Africa... as we do when times are slow, we branch out into other topics of discussion- depending on who is "on" and where  our interests lie.  "Lily", a lady from Canada, posted a link to the National Geographic's new Birding page on their website.  As birds are also an interest of mine, I took a look at her link. 

This is "Lily's" posting:  "A national geographic page with so many amazing bird pics --- hope it works
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birding/bird-photos?source=email_photo".  Interesting, so I kept looking at the website until I clicked on this link: http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/birds/ and about fell out of my chair!  THAT WAS MY PHOTO ON NATIONAL GEOGRAPHICS' WEBSITE!!  The Mandarin drake (multi colored duck) was taken at the San Diego Zoo on our very first visit to the zoo. 

I was shocked. I was flabbergasted. I was tickled. I was now running on 100% adreneline! It took me a few minutes to recall that I had indeed downloaded that photo to the website in a photo contest (which I have no idea if I won or not... but doubt it) a couple of months ago... and promptly forgot about it! I only downloaded the one photo.  I guess by the National Geographic using my photograph on their website justifies my original thought that it was a decent photograph!

My first call was to my Dad... who wasn't home. He was at work and it about killed me to have to wait another couple of hours to tell him about it! So, in the meantime, I told everyone else! Buzz kill. Out of everyone I know, only one other person seemed to be as happy, excited and in general as "blown away" as I was. From my family, I got 1 email from my brother- I emailed all immediate family members with email; texted my sister that doesn't have email.  From FB, I got congrats from several High School friends I haven't seen in decades, and 1 congrats from my "ex" sister-in-law.

When I did talk to my Dad, he was genuienly happy for me, but was more worried about my having a photo credit than the fact that were using my photo on their website.  Yes, not as great an honor as having your photograph actually IN the National Geographic, but being used on their website wasn't shabby either!

Later in the day, I got a couple of emails from "Lily" explaining how she found the link to begin with.  Seems she is signed up to get an email copy of their "Inside National Geographic" newsletter and they used the photo on the newsletter.  She was so taken by the photo, that she sent it to her daughter. After posting the link in our forum, that was how she found out it was my photograph. 

Serendipity.  Yes, I like that!