The last photographers I want to introduce this week are wizards when it comes to capturing birds on camera. It doesn’t hurt that they live near spectacular nature sanctuaries in Hungary and bordering nations, which attract thousands of avians when the Danube river floods the area.

Zsolt Kudich and Réka Zsirmon document, among others, the lives of the great egrets. If you click the link in his name, you see what I mean. Commissioned by European Commission and Danubeparks, they took their photos in fourteen nature conservation areas of eight countries alongside the Danube River, in ways that have showered awards upon him and his colleagues, deservedly so.

The photographs are magical, something I would have said with loads of envy not so long ago, coveting the equipment, which makes a difference, and the access, which provides opportunities.

No longer. It has become so clear to me that what moves me most deeply is the sense of wonder when nature is willing to let you come close for experience, surprising you with unexpected encounters in your daily life. Here is a path that I have walked for over 30 years multiple times a month, and all of a sudden there is a tree, dead after this strange winter, that serves as seating for multiple great egrets. I have seen these kind of birds before, in various places, sometimes more than one in water and swamp lands, but never here, that high, that unperturbed. Documenting them from a distance with an amateur’s camera is a bonus, not the prize.

The awe is in the encounter. I could not feel more connected to nature if there were hundreds of them, or my lens magnified every detail. And I couldn’t agree more with Irish songwriter Van Morrison who, in his 1985 song (attached below,) insists that his love is not wisdom (Sophia) but the study of the fundamental nature of knowledge, reality, and existence (philosophy.) The musician is also pointing to a higher power that provides wonder. I believe that the reality of nature is providing wonder as much as questions about our role in it. Any old jaunt into the outdoors will confirm this – one plant, bird, lichen, insect, shadow and light play at a time.

A Sense of Wonder

Van Morrison

I walked in my greatcoat
Down through the days of the leaves
No before after, yes after before
We were shining our light into the days of blooming wonder
In the eternal presence, in the presence of the flame

Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder
Didn’t I come to lift your fiery vision bright
Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder in the flame

On and on and on and on we kept singing our song
Over newtonards and comber, gransha and the
Ballystockart road
With boffyflow and spike
I said I could describe the leaves for samuel and felicity
Rich, red browney, half burnt orange and green

Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder
Didn’t I come to lift your fiery vision bright
Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder in the flame

It’s easy to describe the leaves in the autumn
And it’s oh so easy in the spring

But down through january and february it’s a very different thing

On and on and on, through the winter of our discontent
When the wind blows up the collar and the ears are frostbitten too
I said I could describe the leaves for samuel and what it means to you and me
You may call my love sophia, but I call my love philosophy

Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder
Didn’t I come to lift your fiery vision
Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder in the flame

Wee alfie at the
Castle picture house on the castlereagh road.Whistling on the corner next door where
He kept johnny mack brown’s horse
O solo mio by mcgimsey
And the man who played the saw
Outside the city hall
Pastie suppers down at davey’s chipper
Gravy rings, wagon wheels
Barmbracks, snowballs
A sense of wonder
A sense of wonder
A sense of wonder

Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder
Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder
Didn’t I come to bring you a sense of wonder