Monterey Maple Farm Wasp & Bird Feeder

Monterey Maple Farm Bird and Wasp Feeder belongs to a series of elements shot by JoAnn Elam at a farm in Monterey, MA, over the course of a few years in the early 1980s. While the other elements in the series explore the farmers’ work and the surrounding flora and fauna, Monterey Maple Farm Bird and Wasp Feeder instead focuses on the inside of a feeder where a wasp and a bird take refuge one after the other. The wasp is shot in extreme close-up, bathed in light, whereas the comings and goings of the bird in the feeder are captured from further away, in the dark, as if the filmmaker were a voyeur somewhat intruding on nature. A bird feeder (perhaps the same one) also appears in Monterey Maple Farm 81.