I’ve always had a fondness for little things and a recent experience reminded me of how much of a difference they can make in my life. I have been struggling a little over the past few months with life adjustments, physical niggles and concerns about people I care about suffering under unfair pressure. I have some exciting projects to look forward to but have felt in a rut with a lack of motivation for photography partly caused by a backlog of images offsetting any pleasure in making new images. My weekly blogging, instead of being a pleasure, has felt a bit of a chore that I’ve managed to keep going from a stash of prewritten posts that I had built up when on leave in November.

One of my upcoming projects is the opportunity to help Edin with one of her seabird research projects. This will have us camping on an island, clambering about and burrowscoping to assess breeding seabird populations. I decided that I had better put in some training so that I can enjoy the opportunity as much as possible. My main exercise is cycling on my mountain bike which I manage for an hour or two most days so have a reasonable base of aerobic fitness. My hill climbing walking muscles can do with a bit of attention so I have taken to hiking up a hill in the forest across the road. My plan was to just hike up a few times and then add a back pack to the routine.

Second trip up I encountered a North Island robin and had to make do with my iPhone to photograph it. This meant that the next trip had to include a loaded camera backpack in the hope I could do some justice to the memory. The extra load was a little sooner in the regime than planned but the risk of reward worth the effort.

Staking out the spot and waiting I found that my robin was a pair and I spent a lovely session watching them forage and photographing in the dim forest light. The delight of noticing and then spending time with these little treasures was priceless. It was a complete escape that took me outside of myself and all the preoccupations of the past few months. It was a great reminder of the benefits of exercise, slowing down and observing. The track I am climbing is one I cycle episodically but at cycling speed there would be little chance of spotting the birds. I often see or hear birds while cycling but it is more bird spotting than interacting and fully appreciating.

I am also finding the hiking more contemplative than cycling where a degree of your attention needs to go toward not falling off! Walking can be done with the mind largely in neutral to process other worries. I used to find with distance running that it was quite hypnotic and I would process and resolve a lot of work problems while running and then have absolutely no recollection of parts of the run. Cycling is great for finding a flow state so I’m not giving it up but for now I am enjoying developing different enzyme pathways in my legs.

Photos with Nikon Z8 and Nikkor Z 400mm f4.5 VR S