As my brain is otherwise occupied at the moment… a reblog from six years ago…
Red kite
“It’s a humming bird moth!” said my younger son as he got out of the car. I’d picked him up to fix his suit for a wedding and the little creature was hovering over the last of the valerian outside the door. “You get so many things here,“ he added as I showed him a few of the latest photographs. An early start at my elder son’s had seen me out before the traffic where, for the second day running, I had managed to snap a couple of distant shots of the heron that seems to have taken up residence beside the main road. It is odd to see it so untroubled … this wild, almost prehistoric creature… as great, lumbering lorries speed past, while it potters about investigating the plastic bags of rubbish that someone had dumped. This is a bird built for fishing, not scavenging and the bird seems out of place… or maybe we are, diving through blindly the countryside at speed. People are driving past peering at me with the camera… not, apparently, even seeing what it is I am pointing it at.
An ostrich in Buckinghamshire?
It gets weird sometimes. This kind of thing happens a lot; we see something, a thing of grace and beauty, a thing of powerful presence… and while Stuart and I stare in awe, the world simply wanders past taking little notice; not, apparently, even seeing what we see. It started the very first weekend we were out with the hawks, long before we had any idea of writing together. We had stopped to gawp in awestruck delight at a red kite that was diving low into a garden, feet from the road, circling above then diving again… so big, so close and so very beautiful… so much strength and power in it… And a woman meandered past, holding her snack-sized child by the hand, within inches of the great talons… and didn’t even see it! She must have felt the wind from its wings but the beautiful thing didn’t seem to cast a shadow on her attention.
…or a scavenging heron…
It’s not just birds either. Whole hills, apparently, slide past conscious attention to be filed as invisible. It reminds me of Douglas Adams and his ‘SEP Field’;
“An SEP is something we can’t see, or don’t see, or our brain doesn’t let us see, because we think that it’s somebody else’s problem…. The brain just edits it out, it’s like a blind spot. If you look at it directly you won’t see it unless you know precisely what it is. Your only hope is to catch it by surprise out of the corner of your eye.” He continues, “The technology involved in making something properly invisible is so mind-bogglingly complex that 999,999,999 times out of a billion it’s simpler just to take the thing away and do without it……. The ‘Somebody Else’s Problem field’ is much simpler, more effective, and ‘can be run for over a hundred years on a single torch battery.’ This is because it relies on people’s natural predisposition not to see anything they don’t want to, weren’t expecting, or can’t explain.” Life, the Universe and Everything.
The really sad thing is that while Adams wrote humorous fiction, SEP theory is a recognised psychological effect that affects both individuals and populations…
Well, I know it’s there…
So, this morning I had the camera on the car seat and my eyes open as I drove through the early mists of an autumnal Sunday to my elder son’s to cook. This time I did not see the heron in a place I could stop… however, and coincidentally, there was a kite sitting on the fence by the road side. ‘Coincidental’ as there had just been a text exchange about their infrequently observed landings. I couldn’t really stop, so it was another quick shot. I’d had two kites and a buzzard in the past few days and sort of caught most of them on camera. Yesterday I had pulled over on the way back from dropping my younger son at a wedding. A buzzard flew over and landed… and, once I had finished staring and grinning, I just managed to capture it in the corner of the field before it flew off over the hedge.
On the fence
Now as photographs go, I know that none of these are much good. But they mark a moment in time rather than capturing visual beauty. They are snapshots of a fleeting encounter, an instant that will never come again and, as such, they have their own beauty to me. I wonder how much we miss… how much I miss… because it simply doesn’t register… doesn’t make it past the attention-filters? Driving home I thought about that, listening to the cry of the kite above the car and being thankful that I can hear it. I remembered suddenly watching the night with an old friend, almost forty years ago. He was some decades my senior and stated, quite simply but with infinite regret that he missed hearing the bats that flitted overhead. Being so young I couldn’t imagine not being able to hear them, but I too have since lost that range and the bats fly in silence for me now. “The Flower that once has blown for ever dies” said Omar Khayyám; maybe we need to open our awareness to the world a little more and notice before the petals fall and are lost in a river of regrets and might have beens. We never get a second chance at now.
The wings of the moment
Sue Vincent's Daily Echo 
A beautiful and interesting to read as it was the first time 💜
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you, Willow ❤
LikeLike
Not surprised your brain is otherwise occupied. May this ‘now’ pass you by on the above mentioned wings.
LikeLiked by 1 person
As long as it is working, it can pass me like a brick falling on target 😉
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hahahah … what a great saying! : D
LikeLike
😀
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lovely, Sue. Six years ago was before my time blogging. I appreciate you message here. I often think this same thing when I am having rhapsodies over an insect or flower no-one else in my family even notices. Life is about how you see things.
LikeLiked by 1 person
It is…and I have always found the camera lens a good way to focus attention.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Keep thinking about the heron in its otherworldly state of mind. It’s true, I think of them as prehistoric creatures too. There’s something ancient about the way they’re put together, too big to hang around long when people are about. But they do.
LikeLiked by 1 person
They just seem to span the ages somehow… but they are incredible creatures.
LikeLike
We had a near miss with one the other day, decided to fly across the road in front of us. Getting airborne takes them a while and it almost didn’t make it over the roof of the car.
LikeLike
They do seem to like to do that …
LikeLike
We both ducked. I’ve never seen one that close, flew right over the bonnet across the windscreen.
LikeLike
I’m not surprised… they take you on the hop …
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am always amazed but what there is to see, even when most people don’t. They must have different eyes to us…
LikeLike
There is so much going on around us all the way x
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on Anita Dawes & Jaye Marie ~ Authors.
LikeLike
T
Thank you for sharing x
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog and commented:
Don’t let SEP make you miss out on the little pleasures of life 😎
LikeLiked by 1 person
💞
LikeLiked by 1 person
😘🥰😍
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have also been amazed by people walking by and not seeing things. Nature offers such splendours, both big and small. Some people will see an insect, fly or beetle, with irridescent bodies and say, ‘ugh, a fly/beetle,’ and maybe try to kill it.
The same applies to people who visit places like museums and stately homes. You would think they would notice things there, as they’ve gone to see the place. But no! They walk past amazing sculptures, furniture, works of art etc with never a glance. At best they stop to take a selfie. Not ‘look at this wonderful piece of art/furniture/pottery’, but ‘look at me standing by (whatever).
LikeLike
And that’s the nail on the head, Viv… we live increasingly in a society that values that ‘look at me’ approach and culture.. and we miss so much when we become our main focus!
LikeLike
This is such an important reminder to savor those small moments of beauty and grace.
LikeLike
Every one of them matters… and none of them will come again
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yes, this becomes more apparent with each passing day.
LikeLike
🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Whenever I hear a bird, I try to locate it. People stare at me quizzically if they pay attention to me at all. I must admit its not a normal activity for city streets.
But a few years ago as I went uptown to feed my nephew’s cat while he was away, I was startled by a hawk flying right above me up the street and landing on a tree. A police car was parked on the street and both policemen also got out of their car to look in wonder. Some things cannot be ignored. (K)
LikeLike
Hawks in the city … no you cannot ignore a hawk .
LikeLiked by 1 person
There are actually quite a few here, I even once saw an eagle. And cranes used to fly by the window of one of the places I lived. But this was a very close encounter.
LikeLike
Ah… eagles are far away here nowadays
LikeLiked by 1 person
Having a camera forces us to see what others miss, and even when we are without said camera, just having used it keeps us more alert… Like the post.
LikeLike
Yes… I feel that way.The lens.. real or not… shifts how we look and frame what we see… and how we interpret it too .
LikeLiked by 1 person
This reminds me of when Jon and I were walking along a cliff top path on Aran and saw a school of porpoises below us. We stood, entranced. When some people came towards us we pointed down, excitedly and told them there were porpoises playing. “Oh, yes,” they said as they walked on. Maybe they’d seen them often, but I think if I saw them every day, I’d still be entranced.
LikeLike
I was the same when we got porpoises off the ferry last year… fair bouncing! It made my day!
LikeLike
Oh wow, those wings Sue! What a shot!!!
LikeLike
Fabulous, aren’t they?
LikeLike
I’ll say! Huge!!!!
LikeLike
They are enormous birds when you get up close.
LikeLike
We had two herons on the marina, but each kept to their own basin. Maggie almost came nose to beak with one and both stood their ground. Fascinating to watch them fish!
LikeLike
I’ll never forget coming so close with them at Nick’s wnen we had a problemwith the pond… Just feet away and almost as tall as me…
LikeLike
I know. Hope you’re having a comfortable day Sue.
LikeLike
I may have had better 😉
LikeLike
🙂 Easy for me to say, but get some rest.
LikeLike
I’ll try…
LikeLike
🙂 ❤
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lovely, Sue. I think I missed a lot when I was preoccupied with kids and work and the house etc. Now that I am retired, I SEE more and find such wonders around me to enjoy! It’s hard to pull off the rad around here to take a picture – the motorists behind you take umbrage.
LikeLike
Our roads are too narrow on the whole for their to be much traffic, half the tiime 🙂
LikeLike
Insightful post, Sue. Being attuned to nature, I am constantly noticing things others pass right by… it often leaves me baffled, “how can they miss that?” I wonder. Lost in their human world, I guess. I kind of feel sorry for them. 😉
LikeLike
I have seen a woman ‘not see’ a red kite land right beside her… such a privilege passed unseen!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow! When you really look, there are wonders to see.
LikeLike
Oh yes 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
😍
LikeLiked by 1 person