I haven’t seen Nutty Buddy lately, so yesterday I invested in a bag of raw peanuts, hoping to lure him back to his tree.

I think I saw Dough, Ray and Mee recently at the edge of the woods where my street curves sharply away from Lake Hartwell. But it’s been several weeks since they visited my yard.

Coyfoxy has crossed the yard only a couple of times this summer. Maybe they all have been steering clear because of the presence of Stinky, whom I saw slinking up the side of the woods the other day.

These are the wild friends who have come within Canon range of my back door, and they’ve given me an enjoyable way to pass the time between writing chores and the other obligations of a scribe who is eight years into retirement.

Retirement has given me an awakened interest in photography, which I practiced sporadically during a long career in journalism. I never got really good at it, because I take photos for enjoyment, and to get really good at it you have to learn the science. Once you start making a science of it, I lose interest.

In cut my photographic teeth on a basic Nikon. To use it skillfully you had to make instant judgments about shutter speed, aperture and lighting, all the while you were composing your picture and manually focusing. I don’t make decisions that fast. I prefer verbal images, which you can conjure at your leisure while drinking a cup of coffee or surveying the passing world through the window.

Digital cameras, with their built-in computers, have taken a lot of the fuss out of photography. I’m not nearly as good as some of my computer-age progeny, but I occasionally luck up on a keeper.

I started taking my digital Canon downstairs and parking it on the dining room table, which has a clear view of the back yard through a sliding glass door.

That’s when I started photographing and naming my animal visitors.

Nutty Buddy has provided many photo ops. Last fall, I scattered raw peanuts under the young oak just off my patio, and he would scamper up, snack on one or two, and bury the rest in the mulch. During the spring, I would catch him digging up his stash and nibbling on it under the shade.

Dough, Ray and Mee have been visiting us occasionally for the past three years. I’ve probably seen three generations of Ray and Mee. Each time Dough has paid a visit to the edge of the yard she has been accompanied by two spotted fawns. My limited knowledge of deer tells me that fawns lose their spots during the first year, so Mama must be producing a new set of twins each year. But I’m not up to naming baby deer, so I’m sticking with Ray and Mee.

Coyfoxy is a fox, I’m pretty sure, though he appears to be larger than your average fox. He doesn’t look like a coyote to me, though I haven’t seen may coyotes outside the cartoons. He walks cautiously across the back of the yard, usually sticking to the edge of the woods, though once he came very close to my patio. I thought maybe he could be a cross between a fox and a coyote, but Wikipedia tells me that foxes and coyotes can’t interbreed. He has never lingered long enough for me to grab my camera and capture his image, so I’m still waiting to catch him on my memory stick.

Stinky is also an intriguing little critter. I’ve seen him several times moving along the edge of the yard, probably en route to or from the lake. From a distance, it’s hard to distinguish the white stripe running down his back, and I'm afraid to venture a closer look. He moves in a graceful motion, like a wave rolling up the hill. During nasty winter weather, we sometimes leave our garage door cracked to allow the homeless cats in the neighborhood to come in out of the cold. Any food I leave for them is gone the next day, though I’ve never caught one of them inside. I sometimes wonder whether Stinky occasionally pays us a nocturnal visit. If he does, he is thoughtful enough not to leave an odor behind.

I’ve had more luck photographing the bird life. The mockingbirds and robins have been kind enough to pose for me on several occasions, and I’ve caught a few thrashers and a grosbeak picking through the mulch in search of bugs.

When the birds and squirrels abandoned our yard for the shady forest, I began looking for other camera subjects, and discovered that my telephoto lens enabled me to pry into the private moments of insects. So I obtained close-ups of butterflies and bees. One day I spotted a large fly perched on the thick cord that serves as a stay for the canopy over our patio. I tucked it into my memory stick and posted it on Facebook. A friend identified it as a horsefly. I’ve seen many a horsefly in my boyhood, but I usually found them clinging to the neck of a mule, taking nourishment from the host animal. This one was out of place, but I think it was a horsefly. Through the telephone lens, it looked like one of those critters in the termite-control commercials who shows up asking for permission to come inside and use the phone, but who hurries away when the Terminix man shows up.

My favorite photo subject is Miss Peggy, whose image I have been capturing on film and disk for more than 27 years, followed by our grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I calculated the other day that we have produced a total of 34 offspring in three generations. That’s enough to fill the flash drives I plug into my computer, even without the birds, the bugs and the wildlife. And the kids are cuter and more camera-friendly.

Readers may write Gene Owens at 315 Lakeforest Circle, Anderson SC 29625, or e-mail him at WadesDixieco@AOL.com.