An unexpected sight

The weather forecast over the past few days has been forecasting fog and mist for this morning, so I made pland to try and go out and do a bit of photography. I’m a big fan of misty conditions but don’t see them as often as I like – mostly because I’m at work five days out of every seven, and my luck dictates that it’s generally during those days that the mist will appear. I put little trust in weather forecasting apps any more – I’ve been let down by them constantly – so treat whatever they say with a large dose of skepticism, but today they were spot on and I awoke to a lovely misty morning.

I decided to head out to the Moss Valley and walk from Eckinton up in the direction of Ford as I figured there would be plenty of woodlandy scenes to take advantage of, with the added bonus of it only being about ten minutes drive away. I had the GW690 with me, loaded with a roll of HP5+ that I rated at 1600asa, plus a roll of Kodak Gold. In the end I shot both rolls (although one of the HP5+ shots was lost as the shutter button must have been accidentally fired while in my camera bag). It was good to get out on a lovely morning, everything coated in thick frost and with a beautiful soft mist adding further atmosphere.

The most memorable thing wasn’t photography rated at all though, it was this…

While walking along a path between two rows of trees I suddenly saw what I first thought was a kangaroo come bounding around a curve and along the path towards me! It spotted me and froze, sitting in the position you see it in above (please excuse the poor quality – it’s a grab from some zoomed in phone video). A face off then took place with us both wondering what the other would do until, after a couple of minutes, I decided to move forwards. After a few steps it turned tail and hopped back up the path and out of sight again.

I felt quite elated by the experience. It’s nice to come across wildlife while you’re out and about, but to spot something that is so alien to the local environment is quite the thing to witness. I expect that it’s a wallaby rather than a kangaroo (although I’m no expert) and I know that there are some wallaby populations here in the UK that have evolved from captive animals escaping and going feral but, as far as I know, there are none in our local area. Perhaps it was another escaped captive, or maybe one of the existing wild groups has expanded its territory or something? Whatever the case, it made my day. 🙂

Again, apropos of nothing, here’s a picture I took in the Peak District a few weeks ago. There were no wallabys to be seen.

Olympus Trip 35 & Ilford HP5+ . Ilfotec DD-X 1+4 9mins @ 20°

Taken on 2 January 2023.