Tag Archives: pretty

The Golden Hour

Sunrise was at 4.54 am. I rolled out of bed, pulled on some jeans and a short sleeved shirt. On impulse I pulled on my walking boots, grabbed my camera and headed out. I pulled into the carpark at Whitesheet a few minutes later, parked up and set off on a short walk to the heathland.

The light was still quite poor and there was considerable cloud cover. I had to set the ISO at 12,800 initially, to ensure a fast enough shutter speed to capture sharp images of moving wild life. After an hour all I had been able to photograph was a distant stonechat and linnet. The light was improving and I lowered my ISO to 6,400 without suffering a deterioration in shutter speed.

I was beginning to think that this was going to be one of those unproductive sessions. My wildlife photography can be like that. In those instances all you can do is write it off to experience. But then it occurred; a moment of serendipity when by being in the right place, the right moment came along. Nearly two hours after setting foot on the heath.

I was aware of movement in the bush next to me and a lot of twittering. I waited patiently. Finally after several minutes not one, but two Dartford Warblers appeared. They moved about constantly in and out of shot, but they didn’t fly off and weren’t spooked by my presence.

At 7.07am I pulled back into my driveway. The house was still quiet. I fed the dog and the cat, made myself a cup of coffee and a bowl of muesli and downloaded the shots from my old-fashioned DSLR to my laptop. These are a few of the pics:

Dartford Warbler
Distinctive red eyeliner
Although skittish, the dartford warbler held its pose just long enough
“You can’t see me”
“Now you can”

Perserverance

Goldfich taking a drink

Earlier this year I bought myself a New Testament in the original Koine Greek language. I was surprised by the order of the books. In my English Bible Paul’s letters follow on from the Gospels and Acts. In the Greek, the catholic or general epistles precede Paul’s. Thus the first letter is James’.

What is the first thing that James says to his readers? “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perserverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking in anything.”

I have a bird bath in my garden and have been waiting for weeks to capture a photo of a bird actually using it. This week the waiting finally paid off. First a goldfinch came a drank right in front of me, then, the following day, a green finch did the same thing. On both occassions I was only a few feet away with my camera in hand. My patience and perserverance finally was rewarded with some great close-up shots.

Please excuse my mundane and simple anecdote, to illustrate such profound, biblical and pastoral teaching. I was thrilled to get these photos. I wonder whether James had this feeling in mind when he urged his readers to ‘consider it pure joy’.