Karen Gwillim saves bird from camera, solves photo mystery

After she took a camera away from a bird in Saskatchewan, she went looking for the rightful owner of the images

Frank Resendes and his friends from a fishing trip months ago may finally get their pictures back after the camera took an unexpected swim.

It isn't known exactly what happened to the camera between that trip in March and when it was found a few weeks ago, but a bird plays a big role.

Karen Gwillim was driving in a small town about 30 minutes north of Regina when she saw a cormorant with a strap around its neck. She pulled over to help the bird and noticed it was a silver camera. She got closer to the bird and it didn't move as Gwillim removed the camera.

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"I think he was relieved to have something that heavy removed," she said. "He seemed all right."

Gwillim then took the camera home, dried out the memory card and put it in her computer to see what was on it.

Of the 200 or so intact pictures were many of people fishing and some from a wedding.

She wanted these people to get their pictures back so at the end of October she posted a Facebook album and wrote: "I found a camera attached to a cormorant (bird). The camera is rather broken but the SD card still worked. It may have been lost as long ago as October of 2011 around Last Mountain Lake. Does anyone recognize these people?"

The Facebook album didn't help find the rightful owner directly, but Resendes stepped forward to say he was one of the people in the images after he saw Gwillim interviewed on a CBC program.

Resendes told CBC the camera owner dropped it while trying to help a friend haul in a fish.

"He's going to help his buddy land this fish so he's getting closer to the edge of the water, almost falls into the water and that jars the camera out of his pocket and it falls into the canal never to be seen again."

Well, until now.

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It's just too bad the bird didn't take any pictures.

Back in September, a seagull in San Francisco picked up a camera and took it for a ride giving people an actual bird's eye view of the city. The French tourist was filming the sunset when it happened. She tracked down the mostly intact footage and noticed the new footage. The same thing happened to a Slovakian director while he was filming in Cannes. And a lioness pulled the same move when a photographer in Africa put it down on a path hoping to get some live actions shots. One of the lionesses picked up the camera, put it in her mouth and went for a walk, giving us a unique view of the South African grasslands.

As for Gwillim and Resendes, arrangements have been made to reunite the images with the rightful owner of the camera.

With files from CBC

(Image from Karen Gwillim's Facebook page)

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