Look for the Beauty

With so many abhorrent things being perpetrated by our current administration, I often think of this quote by Fred Rogers:

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping'”.

Great Egret on a foggy morning in Florida

She was teaching him a strategy to cope with fear and anxiety by focusing on human goodness rather than on the distressing event itself.

Spending time in nature with a camera in hand is my strategy for coping. Instead of looking for the helpers, I’m looking for the beauty. For the two or three hours I’m out on a walk, I’m totally absorbed in the picture-taking adventure. There’s absolutely no room left in my brain for the scary things to seep in. Even without a camera strapped across my shoulder, time spent in nature is always time well spent.

Great Blue Heron along the Gulf of Mexico

A 2019 study in Frontiers of Psychology found that as little as 20 minutes a day immersed in nature can significantly lower your stress hormone levels. There is, in fact, extensive research across several disciplines including environmental psychology, neuroscience, and epidemiology that demonstrate the significant mental, physical and cognitive benefits of spending time in nature whether you’re in a deep wilderness, an urban park, or your own backyard. You don’t even need a camera to reap the benefits, you just need to be paying attention.

My picture walks have that effect on me. As soon as I’m out among the trees or near a body of water, I experience an immediate sense of calm, especially if I have my camera with me; it makes me pay close attention. For the next few hours, I’ll be totally focused on all the things I see and hear, hoping for an interesting picture or a beautiful shot. It might be a colorful flower, a tiny bird, or an elusive butterfly. When I’m that absorbed with looking, and that absorbed with the whole process of taking a picture using manual settings, the world beyond the reach of my camera completely disappears.

When I arrive home and bring the pictures up on my computer, I’m once again transported to the wonder of it all: zooming in on each plant or creature to see the intricate designs on a butterfly’s wings or the colors around a bird’s eye; the delicate nature of a dragonfly’s wings, or the amazing construction of a spider’s web. It’s all so incredibly interesting.

Just twenty minutes a day…

spent in nature’s embrace…

paying close attention…

…can have a profound impact on your mental health.

Three Gifts

June 4, 2022

I have a mental checklist that I review every time I leave the house for a picture walk: Is my camera battery fully charged? Is my memory card inserted? Do I have an extra card and an extra battery? Do I have my phone and is it fully charged? Do I have my monopod? But, after what happened yesterday, I should probably switch my mental list to an real list!

I was off on another picture adventure and eager to see what surprises awaited me. My destination was a favorite nature center about an hour away from home. Whenever I go on a picture adventure, I feel an immediate sense of calm wash over me once I arrive. Yesterday was no exception. I drove into the parking lot, took a deep, relaxing breath, and prepared for my three-hour escape into nature’s arms– until I realized there was no memory card in my camera!!

Canada Goose on a nest and goose parents with their goslings

I had made this mistake before and had come prepared with an emergency back-up card! Perfect! Once the card was inserted, I happily set off into the ‘wild’ hoping for a day filled with beautiful little creatures and colorful flowers. My joy was short-lived.

Female Mallard and a Semi-palmated Plover

Forty-five minutes into my walk, after taking only three measly pictures, my memory card said ‘full’!! What??? How could that be?? I tried every ‘high tech’ solution I could think of to remedy the situation: pull the card out and put it back in; turn off the camera, turn it back on, and re-format the memory card–repeatedly. Nothing worked! It was time for plan B! Look for the nearest store!

I hustled back to my car as fast as a marginally nimble 75 year-old can hustle on an uneven boardwalk with an expensive camera, a 600mm lens, and a 5 foot monopod! Once in my car, I drove as quickly as was legally possible to the nearest store to find another memory card– and hope that it worked. It didn’t. But I had already driven back to the nature center before I found out!

At that point, I could have just thrown in the towel. I could have just gone for a ‘regular’ walk and not taken pictures. But it was completely impossible for me to do that! This particular nature center had a butterfly house. It was the perfect place for close-up shots of stunning and unusual butterflies. I had to stay!

White Peacock Butterfly in the Butterfly House at the Nature Center

Female Common Whitetail Dragonfly and a Hobomok Butterfly

Garden White Butterfly in the Butterfly House at the Nature Center

Monarch Butterfly in the Butterfly House at the Nature Center

So, I went back into town to a different store and looked for a different memory card. While standing in the aisle reading the descriptions on each of the various cards, I suddenly realized why the first card hadn’t work and dashed out of the store. Back to the nature center for my third and final attempt at trying to salvage what was left of an otherwise lovely day!

Pipevine Swallowtail Butterfly in the Butterfly House at the Nature Center

Zebra Longwing Butterfly in the Butterfly House at the Nature Center

I had first arrived at the nature center at 9:00 a.m. It was now noon. The soft morning light was long gone, as was the cool morning air. It had been a frustrating start to what was supposed to have been a calm and relaxing day. I was totally frazzled.

But, keeping things in perspective is everything. The day was still young. The weather was still great and, most of all, I was very much alive and well, doing something I dearly loved— three priceless gifts that not everyone gets to enjoy. It was all I really needed to remember and off I went…

A Cold and Windy November Walk

November 8, 2018

Yesterday I ventured out to the Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery in Mattawan, Michigan to take a picture walk, but it was so cold and so windy (wind chill of 30 degrees) that a lot of the pictures I took didn’t turn out well. The wind was periodically strong enough that just holding my camera, with its very long lens, was a bit of a challenge. And, at times, I couldn’t hold it steady enough because I was just too darned cold! Of the nearly 600 pictures I took, more than half of them didn’t make the cut. (Even on a good day, though, I tend to take an excessive number of pictures–mostly because I’m still learning and I think maybe picture number two will be better than picture number one. It only becomes a problem, though, when picture 100 might be better than picture 99!!)

pectoral sandpipers 11-7-2018 1-55-42 PM — “Pectoral Sandpipers are a medium-sized, chunky shorebird that is found most commonly on mudflats with short grass or weedy vegetation and seems more at home in the grass than in the water.”

In spite of the cold and windy weather, I was pleasantly surprised, and happy to see so many different birds braving the weather along with me– the Killdeer, the Lesser Yellowlegs, the Pectoral Sandpipers, the Buffleheads and the Mallards were still out on the mud flats and the ponds like they were a few days ago, AND there was a pair of Gadwalls hidden among the other birds! They were well camouflaged!!

lesser yellow legs 11-7-2018 2-17-47 PM — The Lesser Yellowlegs were also in great abundance, but they tended to hang out more in the shallow waters rather than in the mudflats like the killdeer.

killdeer 11-2-2018 8-38-22 AM (2) — “Killdeer get their name from the shrill, wailing *kill-deer* call they give so often. Eighteenth-century naturalists also noticed how noisy Killdeer are, giving them names such as the Chattering Plover and the Noisy Plover.” LISTEN HERE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4u6ax5P-o8

lesser yellow legs 11-7-2018 2-35-37 PM — “The Lesser Yellowlegs is a slender, long-legged shorebird that readily shows off the brightly colored legs that give it its name. It is an active feeder, often running through the shallow water to chase its prey.”

GADWALL

American Tree Sparrow 11-7-2018 2-58-40 PM — I managed to capture this one little tree sparrow all puffed up against the wind and cold–just like me!!

Late in the day, on my way home from the fish hatchery, I decided to keep driving south another 20 minutes to the town of Schoolcraft, where a fellow birder had said I might find flocks of Sandhill Cranes out in the farm fields—and I did! Thank you Andrea Zinkus!

sandhill cranes 11-7-2018 4-22-32 PM — “Sandhill Cranes are known for their dancing skills. Courting cranes stretch their wings, pump their heads, bow, and leap into the air in a graceful and energetic dance.”

sandhill cranes 11-7-2018 3-58-39 PM

sandhill cranes 11-7-2018 4-23-53 PM — Sandhill Cranes make a very distinctive sound. If you’ve never heard it before, take a LISTEN: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeIMak-ohVk

sandhill cranes 11-7-2018 4-22-033

sandhill cranes 11-7-2018 4-22-17 PM — More displays of the Sandhill Crane’s many dance moves!!

sandhill crane with one leg 11-7-2018 4-11-48 PM — A parting shot. Take a close look at this Sandhill Crane. He only has one leg!!