Every year these early alder catkins take me by surprise, but on a sunny day it is a nice surprise, a reminder that spring is over the horizon, although I don’t think that the catkins signify that spring is actually in sight. There is still time for plenty of winter this season. I had passed these catkins a couple of days before, a mild still day when I had forgotten my camera memory card. This time it was exceedingly windy, and repeated attempts to capture the flailing catkins shaking vigorously in the wind all failed. And then I had a successful shot of perfectly still and almost in focus catkins, overshadowed by a perfectly focussed hand gripping the bough as I tried to keep the things still. I finally got my shot, with my left arm and hand stretched sideways out of shot, and my right elbow sticking our sideways as I steadied the camera in the other hand, balancing on the edge of the river bank, leaning over the water in a pose that from the rear must have resembled the stance taken by a bungee jumper about launch themselves into space. I could cope with this style of bungee jumping – a descent of just four feet, although any stretching of the rope would result in a dunking.
Oh boy I thought it was only me who tried to stop the wind from moving my shot and getting my hand instead. Though I think the shot of the day would have been of the photographer.
