Paul Hurst's blog

It may not have felt like it here in the UK today, but Autumn has crept in across the countryside. With temperatures still relatively high, the leaves have turned golden brown and mostly behaved themselves by falling to the floor.

Autumn is a great time to take photographs as the days become shorter which means that light levels tend to be more interesting. This is coupled with some lovely reddish brown colours which really do look good in the pictures.

I was out today capturing some of the settings around my local nature park and had a great time walking in the warm morning air and also chatting with some of the other walkers. I also spent some time at one of the squirrel stations and it was great to see them all gathering food for the winter months.

One thing that did slightly amuse me was that in the midst of all the wildlife. People generally only ever commented on one thing. Despite nimble little squirrels and dainty little rabbits and some beautiful birds, people only seemed to be interested by the presence of rats.

"there's one of em!" they would shout "saw a family of six before, some of um are big buggers too" I would politely nod and smile before taking more pictures.

I can't help thinking that sometimes we are surrounded by some really beautiful animals, birds and flowers yet we only really take notice of the bad things. I didn't meet anyone today who commented on anything but the rats, but as soon as you look though the camera viewfinder, you can't help but notice much more.

I wonder if there's a way of looking out for things like that in life itself? Or are we too preoccupied with trying to spot vermin?

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For anyone who wants to take a look at a few of the photo's I took, take a look at my 'flickr' badge about half way down the Right hand side of the window. Click on it for a proper view of my Flickr pics