Remember Those Camera Batteries!

With digital cameras the most important accessory / part of your equipment is the battery. This is always brought to home when you leave the house with uncharged ones.

I learned this lesson the hard way on the day we decided to take a different direction on our walk. When we left the house for our morning walk I realized I had forgotten to charge my camera batteries.

Now on any other day this would not have been such a big deal. After all what is one day missing a few shots, right?

But today was the perfect day for taking pictures. It stormed last night and the sky was still a little gray. This meant that I would not have to deal with bright sunlight to ruin my pictures.

One block from the house I went to take a picture and realized my batteries were dead. This should not have been a surprise sense I got the warning last time we were out. My camera is nice enough to flash a little red battery light letting me know that it is time to re-charge. But these modern conveniences do little good if you forget to put the batteries in their charger.

And last night when we went walking I thought it was embarrassment about looking silly always with a camera on my shoulder that prompted me to leave it behind. Could it really have bee that wee small voice I was ignoring that was screaming at me to charge my batteries?

No matter what excuse I could come up with didn't really matter. The fact was clear that I had dead batteries in my camera. And pure willpower just will not make them work without batteries.

So I walked back to the house and put the camera away. Off we walked as I thought to myself, “This will be a good opportunity to just enjoy nature and this lovely cool, sun free day.”

At first I was lost in thought of how this would make a nice picture or that would be the perfect shot. But I have plenty already just sitting on my computer waiting for me to do something with them, so I tried to stay focused on the joy of our walk.

I was cool and calm enjoying the day. Then it happened! There in front of us just across the street sat a beautiful white Egret perched on a fence next to the lake. He sat there as we passed and all I could think was that he would have made a beautiful image to share.

And that thought had just passed when over this Egret's head flew a Great Blue Heron. The weather is just right for fishing after a storm too. Fish are the preferred meal for these lovely birds.

I have heard that rain and overcast days are good days for fishing. These great fish catchers seemed to prove that point.

The clincher on our morning walk was the one that got away.

Just as we finished walking through a new neighborhood with some very unique gardens and flowers, which would have made great pictures all by themselves, our puppy startled yet another Great Blue Heron up from a hidden stream.

I held my breath as it flew gracefully up into the sky just a few feet away. He was close enough to feel the breeze created from those huge wings.

What is the bottom line in this story? Always remember to keep a set of fully charged batteries for your digital camera on hand. Sometimes it’s not enough to have the re-chargeable kind only. It doesn’t hurt to carry a few of the regular batteries just in case.

Happy Shooting. May your prize winning picture never fly off into the sunset before you capture it on film or digital file.

I know this post is about "The One That Got Away!" But you can see lot's of Bird Pictures that I did manage to capture. Visit Crane Bird Pictures and see for yourself.