No, this post isn’t about the Duchess of Cambridge 😉 It’s on a compleeeeeetely different topic, actually. But the amount of excitement was duchess-level high, I kid you not. I got caught up in it, too. Yesterday, you see, the bird watching huts at the Parco della Piana (where Stefano and I do most of our bird watching) were filled to capacity with paparazzi directing their powerful lenses and expensive camera equipment towards the bird of the day: a beautiful but rather shy and difficult-to-spot kingfisher…

Every time there was the slightest flutter of tiny blue wings on the other side of the lake, the “machine guns” would go off…I found it quite amusing…

You see, as usual, I was the only one there with one of those compact, no-nonsense, no-extra-heavy/bulky-lenses-to-carry-around, no-frills compact cameras. Mind you, it’s a really GOOD camera with a powerful zoom (extending up to 840 mm), but of course my photos don’t have the quality that, e.g., Stefano’s do. 

I don’t care. I take photos mostly to remember the moment…They don’t have to be good enough to be published in the National Geographic. And yesterday one of the heavily-equipped photographers was actually taken aback when he saw my photos. “Davvero buone,” he told me (= very good). 

The elusive kingfisher finally stopped fishing and sought refuge among the reeds. He was quite far from us…so my camera couldn’t do any better than this…Too bad the gorgeous bird didn’t come a bit closer to us…

Perhaps next time.

There’s always hope!!!