“It’s just a Coati.” The disdain dripping from his voice was palpable. To be fair, he was a bird guide, and we were at a preserve renowned for its abundant variety of bird species.

I sheepishly snapped a few shots anyway before returning focus to our guide.

Nick-named hog-nosed raccoons, coatis are indeed members of the raccoon family. They can be found from the southwestern United States to South America. They are quite common in Costa Rica, where we spent our vacation. But I had never seen one before, so it was exotic and extraordinary to me.

Exotic is exciting.

A few weeks ago, I chatted with another photographer at a popular park. We exchanged notes about what we had encountered thus far — some gadwalls, northern shovelers, etc.

He then mentioned that he had also seen a pair of wood ducks, but the setting sun was already too low to get good shots of them.

I remarked that I had more than a dozen pairs of wood ducks residing in my backyard, to which his response was, “Well, what are you doing here?”

It was a good question. I pondered the answer as I headed home.

It’s fascinating how we become inured to the familiar and seek out new sensory inputs. Even photographers, trained to look at the world differently, fall prey to the fallacy that unusual is better.

The most mundane and common animal can be alluring to someone laying eyes on it for the first time, leaving aside those with neophobia (the fear of anything new). But once it crosses the threshold of familiarity, it can lose its luster.

The photographer I met would have been thrilled to spend some time in my backyard, but the wood ducks were no longer exotic to me. Was this bad?

Does familiarity really breed contempt?

We’ve been programmed to de-emphasize familiar stimuli. This makes sense evolutionarily — for efficiency reasons, our brains categorize sensory inputs based on familiarity and utilize automated responses because processing takes energy.

On the other hand, the unfamiliar has to be evaluated — is it good or bad, i.e., can I eat it, or will it eat me?

Whether we are ultimately attracted to or fearful of an unfamiliar stimulus, its novelty gets our brains revved up and draws our attention more vividly. Subsequently, as new neural connections and associations are created, we expand our knowledge and memories.

But something can be familiar yet uncommon, so we are not accustomed to it. In that case, we still don’t take it for granted and pay more attention to it. For example, I am familiar with bobcats since they inhabit our area of town. However, my brain has not been saturated with them, as they are elusive, so I am still thrilled whenever I see one.

In short, familiarity does not cause contempt in and of itself. But what then of my wood ducks? They were both familiar and common to me, and maybe they were lesser as a result.

Should we turn up our noses at what is common?

We tend to judge the quality of something based on its perceived rarity.

The more there is of something, the more likely we are to devalue it. For example, Mallards are a dime a dozen where I live, so they are often overlooked by photographers on the hunt for something more uncommon, like, a Hooded Merganser.

In the case of wood ducks, I see them all day long on my patio, vying for dropped bird seed. I can even see them from my bed, truth be told! Nevertheless, they frequently have my attention, despite not being exotic.

Thus, wildlife can be familiar and common yet still elicit emotional responses—good or bad, as well as curiosity and the desire to learn more.

The death knell only happens when something is no longer considered worthy of attention.

Ordinariness — a death warrant for attention.

Ordinariness implies a lack of exceptional qualities, distinctiveness, or uniqueness. It means unremarkable — not worth being talked about (or thought about).

In other words, when something no longer elicits an emotional response or curiosity, it becomes relegated to the ordinary.

The bird guide rolled his eyes at me for snapping photos of the coati, not because it was familiar or common but because, to him, it was ordinary.

So, how can we prevent our backyard from becoming a snooze fest? One approach suggests that we find beauty in the ordinary—but by definition, it is not worthy of our time or attention.

One cannot find beauty in something one disregards.

Instead, I would suggest that our perception needs to change. Our viewpoint has become mundane, not the wildlife. To rekindle our appreciation for nature, we once again need to see it as if for the first time.

Thankfully, there are several different ways to freshen perspective, none of which require a ticket to the other side of the world to find new stimuli. All of the following five approaches work to reframe our minds and eliminate the label of ordinary.

1. Change the setting.

Backgrounds can make or break a photo. Lighting and weather create moods and can be used to add an air of mystery or glamour. Color imbues emotion.

When we had a snowstorm recently, I took the opportunity to photograph “our” wood ducks in the snow, which provided an uncommon background for them.

The next photo is of a duckling in a temporary pond that reflects the wall color of nearby apartments during sunset. It’s an unusual setting for a common and familiar subject.

2. Shift focus.

There are several ways to change focus. All of them require us to make adjustments, not our subjects.

Try a New Angle

If you always look at things from YOUR eye level, try getting low to the ground or up high.

Last spring, during a period of flooding, I camped out at the temporary ponds, crouching as low as possible to get shots of ducklings.

I would never claim that the ducklings were exotic, but the above image, which I was fortunate enough to take, was a finalist in the 2023 Nature Conservancy Photography Contest.

Get Close

Getting closer will reveal qualities that are otherwise overlooked. Take, for example, Canada geese, which are extremely abundant in my area. We tend to dismiss them as a nuisance, in part because of the copious amounts of excrement they leave everywhere. But have you ever really examined one?

In my opinion, they have gorgeous, soulful eyes.

They also have beautiful tushes!

Move Away

Moving further away will give you a better sense of the environment.

The moose in the photo above is just a tiny part of the scene, yet it is one of my favorite shots because you sense the grandeur of his world. Granted, moose do not frequent my backyard, but there are millions of moose portraits already floating around on the internet.

3. Document behavior.

One can take only so many bird-on-a-stick photos before boredom kicks in. Of course, those images can still be attractive, but because of their static nature, they have limitations.

Capturing natural behaviors, whether preening, foraging, interacting with other wildlife, or even any movement, will convey much more about the subject and retain our interests.

Take, for example, that ubiquitous mallard. If there ever were an ordinary duck, this would be it. However, here are three photos that express personality and behavior.

In the above image, all three ducks have just landed in a pond, and the middle one clearly has something to say. Perhaps he is commenting on how the other drake almost landed on top of him (see next photo).

I found both of those images to be entertaining — certainly not ordinary.

For the third picture, I documented a female mallard preening herself, and she was meticulous about grooming every feather.

4. Cultivate curiosity.

Before dismissing something as ordinary, be sure you have really spent time getting to know it. Just by virtue of expending energy on a subject, you become more vested in its existence. For example, did you know the following?

Mallards, like other sexually-dimorphic birds, can sometimes go though spontaneous sex reversal…This phenomenon can cause female mallards to exhibit male plumage, and vice versa (phenotypic feminisation or masculinisation).
From Wikipedia

(And we try to restrict human gender expression based on the antiquated belief that sex determines gender… — but I digress).

My point is that there is no such thing as ordinary.

5. Impart knowledge.

Your audience may not be as familiar with your subject as you are. In the case of our bird guide, he could have shared some distinctive details about the Coati that we were unaware of. And considering our lack of knowledge, he wouldn’t have had to stretch very far.

Even talking about something you found to be ordinary will elevate it. After all, you will be remarking on something you previously thought unremarkable!

In fact, ALL life is remarkable. We just need to remind ourselves of that occasionally.