Refreshing the Soul

A couple of birthdays ago, my husband decided to buy me a camera- a Nikon Coolpics L340, to be precise. I wasn't sure I wanted or needed a camera, but I went along with it as it was better than the boxed set of Norman Wisdom films he once bought me (which is what you get in our house when you say, during an episode of Last of the Summer Wine, "Good grief, Norman Wisdom! Who'd have thought he was still alive!").

To be honest, I thought of the camera in much the same vein as the Norman Wisdom videos. After all, how many pictures of the dog would I need? For a long time, the Nikon sat on a shelf. Until I took it for a walk. It and the dog. We went down to the Land Yeo and I began taking photos of what was there- birds (tricky), bugs ( a bit tricky, until I worked out the macro settings) and plants (not as easy as you'd think when there's a breeze). I had a lovely time and the dog had a very long walk, and when I got the camera home, I had some good pictures and one or two great pictures. Most, though, were rubbish, but that didn't matter. There would be other opportunities and I'd get better pictures as I learned how to use the camera.
So, every walk ( if it wasn't raining) the camera came with me, and I took umpteen pictures of the -

birds, bugs and anything else that was interesting.
We went for drives just to take pictures. We learned more about the local histories. We saw beautiful landscapes, ancient monuments and gorgeous houses. But what I loved, what I really loved, was my own little patch of nature- the banks of Land Yeo and the creatures that live there.

When I return from my walks, I feel that my soul has been refreshed and I look forward to the next time I visit the place. I know my way around, now. I know where I'm likely to find the sparrowhawk, what kind of weather will entice the bugs out, whether I'm likely to see the second heron, where the owls might be hunting, and one day, one day I will catch the kingfisher off its guard and get a decent picture of it. I swear it laughs at me every time it flies past. At the moment, I'm photographing the stonechats and tits on the reed beds, and the egrets and herons (apparently, a second heron has been spotted, but I haven't seen it yet). I might pick up a kingfisher, if I'm lucky.

 Just before Christmas, I bought myself a new camera, a Sony DSC HX350. It has almost twice the zoom of the Nikon and takes much better photo's. It has a myriad of settings and I've only tried 3 of them, so it may take some time to get the best out of it. We've been to a lot of the nature reserves in the area and have got some splendid results and...a lot of dross. But it's all good practice, and, who knows- one day I might get a decent picture of that kingfisher.