Matilda the cat still holds the record for the most appearances on here by an animal, having reached six before she passed on a couple of years ago. This courtyard, which I pass through on one of my two routes from home to town, was her spot: all of her portraits were taken here. Well, she seems to have a replacement. Certainly there were demands today for some kind of acknowledgement.
Another bird, yes, but I’ve been trying to get a decent shot of a red fody, a.k.a. common fody (Foudia madagascariensis) since my first visit here. He — and this is definitely a male — really is that red: I’ve not tweaked the colour settings at all on this one. As the species’ Latin name suggests, they are originally from Madagascar, but have made it over to the other side of Africa by one means or another down the centuries.
Walking around in the countryside, as I do, I noticed that there was nothing stopping me standing in this position and attempting to get this shot: which only really works if the symmetry is just right, and in that regard I think I have done a reasonable job. In a way, it’s a shame about the wires, but then again, they are the point of the structure.
Went on a walk that was neither particularly scenic nor particularly straightforward, but it did have one saving grace: this beauty hovering over the grass of Cutacre Park, between Bolton and Wigan. What must the mouse feel? Does it know its hunter is up there, waiting for it to poke its head out of hiding just for that one crucial second?
Students from a quarter-century or more ago will know the UoM’s ‘North Campus’ as ‘UMIST’ — but this institution has long been merged out of existence, and quite a few of its buildings, like this one beside the Mancunian Way, have stood derelict for years. But there’s still an aspirational feel to this shot — climb the ladder and jump over the moon? And let’s get some blue sky into things. It’s been altogether too grey lately.
While on one of my random perambulations around northern England, I found myself walking past this establishment, which is one of two factories in the country making Fox’s Biscuits. It’s in Wesham, between Preston and Blackpool. The best thing about this came a minute or so after I took this shot, when I turned a corner and was suddenly downwind of it. I had to stop walking for a while and just breathe in the delicious smell of it. How they live with that all the time in Wesham I have no idea, they must be hungry all the time, feeling like Charlie Bucket.
Mediterranean weather today, for sure — very pleasant. More of this weather, please — or will we get the June monsoon this year? I think the Piece Hall, restored a few years ago, also affects a kind of Mediterranean vibe, with its resemblance to a Roman forum. Either way, she was happy enough about being photographed, hence the wave.
There still doesn’t seem to be a great deal going on in Manchester, but at least the light was good today. Lancaster House stands on the intersection of Princess and Whitworth Streets, and is a good example of the Victorian tendency to stick these grandiose flourishes at the top of any given commercial building. Does it assert some kind of dominance, or did they just have a lot of stone left over? Either way, I like it.
Certainly a red kite, a species of bird that was close to becoming extinct in the UK some decades ago, but thanks to a number of programmes of reintroduction, now making a fine recovery. I caught a number of these on camera in Wales some years ago, but those were coming to an organised feeding station. This one was as wild as they come, soaring on the thermals above a road in Lincolnshire. It turned into the sunlight just as I had it in the sights.
Last day in Oxford on this trip. While having a cup of tea outside the museum (in the same place depicted on Tuesday), in more pleasant sunshine, my eye was caught by the profuse fruit on this horse chestnut tree. In my youth all these would have been harvested for the playing of conkers, but apparently Health & Safety has done for that tradition, at least officially. Mind you, all of these were some distance up in the air, so I guess they will come down in their own time.
Being 42 