Unconnected to any other aspect of my life, I briefly encountered this gorgeous creature today. We flirted. I raised the camera. He grinned… look, you can see him grinning… the shot was taken, we parted ways. Skedaddle is his name, it seems — for how he moves when placed on a smooth wooden floor, and faced with the cats who also live in his house.
I try when I can to make these photos somehow epitomise the day, but this is an exception. I spent almost the whole day in a room interviewing job applicants. This is just a shot grabbed out of my office window, in one of the few bursts of light on this otherwise grey November Monday. But I like these natural feather dusters, Cortaderia selloana or pampas grass. Very 1970s. Then again so’s the building I work in.
This picture needs some explanation. For the second time in a few weeks I visited the Etihad stadium, home of Manchester City, for a football match (there were reasons). While watching City do what they usually do, that is, barely break sweat but win easily, it was easy to be distracted in the first half by the activities of what appeared to be a hawk, or kestrel, that had taken up residence in the roof and kept flying between two of the stands. At one point it clearly dropped something that it was holding in its claws yet still managed to swoop down and catch the prey before it hit the ground (and or landed on someone in row F). I just about managed to capture it here in flight, even if it is not very definable. It may not be all that good a photo but it is still more interesting than the night’s football.
Postscript: As my Facebook friend Margaret pointed out after I posted this, the bird may well have been on professional duty; birds of prey are a good way of keeping the pigeon and other pest population down in a stadium like this.
9am and I’m at the station on the way to work. Whatever this robin’s plans were for the day, he seemed happy enough about it, his song being the soundtrack to the wait for the 09:06. A shame he wasn’t perched in the sunshine but never mind.
The clocks went back last night, and winter draws closer. But no one has told this tree yet and it’s determined to go out in a blaze of glory.
As well as a profusion of fruit this year does seem to have produced larger-than-usual amounts of fungi. I don’t know what species is this butter-coloured toadstool, but I liked the way one of them had turned up its edges and thus allowed a little pool of water to gather at the top, that then glinted in what sunlight had managed to push through the trees above. Like a little bird-bath in a garden. The fairies gather…
The further north you go, the earlier the trees turn. Those who want to see displays like this in late September, come to northern Finland. The back of the traffic sign gives nice contrast.
Plums. We are drowning in them. Possibly not as many as the all-time Bumper Plum Year that was 2015, but after a final harvest this morning, the now-empty tree has given up at least 30 lbs this year (14 kg). Want plums? We have them.
“Skkrrzzz-thttt. Lander to Moonbase Theta. Small crater to negotiate. Fzzztt.”
Or perhaps it’s an aphid on a wet table. You decide.
The weather was mostly good over these two days and only in the final hour or so was there some drizzle. This came down while I descended, aching and exhausted, from Scarth Gap (the notch in the hillside above) to Buttermere, while these sheep all went up the other way. There is a shepherd and dog just out of shot to the left. I did get some shots of them all coming up towards me as well, but this is the best one.
Being 42 