Kansas City Renaissance Festival - 2026 - Last day

I'll open here by saying that I nearly gave myself a heart attack tonight.

Even after walking around the Ren Fest, I still kept to my nightly outings. Because... why not? It allowed me to photograph a woman carrying a barstool and Rio. And tonight was no different. But I also ended up cutting the evening very short - about 15 minutes after getting there.

Let me preface what I'll say next by saying... most any photographer's greatest fear is losing the photos they took. Gear can be replaced. Deleted or corrupt files that have no backup cannot.

And today I made two major mistakes. First occurred this morning before leaving for the Renaissance Festival. My Z5 has two card slots, and they are configured for mirroring mode. This protects against one of the two cards getting corrupted. And... I left one of the two cards at home, so was only shooting with one.

I've been using Lexar-brand cards for years, though, so thankfully have never lost a card. They're one of the best brands for storage, and I highly recommend them if you're a photographer. Anyway...

The second mistake happened before going out tonight. I made sure to have both cards this time and... formatted both cards after putting them in the camera. Without first confirming that I had dumped the card to my workstation. I had gotten complacent. And that's a surefire way to make a catastrophic error.

Hence why I cut my evening outing short. As I had a nagging feeling that I didn't dump the card. And it stayed with me so strongly that I cut the outing short.

So... did I just delete an entire afternoon? Well, you're reading this, so you can readily surmise that... No. Thankfully, no, I did not delete an entire afternoon.

So anyway... this is Clementine.

She's an American Kestrel and a wildlife "ambassador" from Nature's Educators, a wild bird rescue and rehabilitation program with education outreach as well. They were at the Ren Fest with several other birds. Including an African Pied Crow called... Zazu - because... of course - a Red-Tailed Hawk called Pyro, and a Barn Owl called Dahlia.

Dahlia's handler is Sky, and Miranda was the one doing all the talking.

Moving on. There were plenty of people in various types of attire, and even full costume builds. Decided to snag him while the chance presented in a relatively open area of the grounds.

Found this charming woman near the Three Lions Stage. The Jolly Rogers is performing behind her.

Wandering the grounds some more while my wife was watching one of the performances, I found this colorful woman waiting outside the castle.

On one of the walls near the mead bar - I think - was this woman.

Then up the hill from her I find... this...

After him there wasn't much luck for the rest of the day till I got back up near the King's Entrance. That's when I was able to find her, finally scratching "pirate" off my list.