There has been a lot of movement around the country for me lately, but today marks the start of a longish stretch at home. As in other such periods I will have to hope that Hebden Bridge keeps me inspired. The local fauna and flora is often a good place to start: this blackbird posed somewhat impatiently, but did allow me to get in his close-ups.
This is the second fox to appear on this blog. The first was depicted on the hills above Kentmere in the Lake District (on 4/3/2020) which one might think was an appopriate location to see one. However, I believe there are now more urban foxes in the UK than rural ones, and this one was seen less than five minutes’ walk from King’s Cross station, at roughly 10am on a Monday morning in central London.
It’s injured though. Whatever is up with its front left leg, it wasn’t putting any weight on it. Nothing I could do about it, sadly. I hope it is OK.
I’ve been suspicious before that certain flora depicted on here are in fact versions of ‘Audrey II’, the man-eating alien plant from Little Shop of Horrors. Here’s another one. Of course, the connection is made because the plant in the movie is so well-designed, and takes characteristics of real plants as the basis. But it still works. (It’s a foxglove by the way.)
The cherry blossom in the courtyard at work had been and gone six weeks ago, but the more exposed trees outside the White Lion in Hebden Bridge require more lead-in time to reach full flower. Still, here they are — in time to make the place look good for the Easter daytrippers.
Today was the first day of my Easter holiday, and I definitely did very little. This insect was far busier. I know that even without deeply entering into its lifestyle, or anything.
Now, she’s on the nest. If it wasn’t for the presence of the nearby, and bright green, drake (unpictured), I would never have seen this nesting mother among the undergrowth. Seeing as ducks don’t have a great deal of offensive capacity, doubtless this camouflage is her only real protection against having the brood eaten by someone/thing or other. She was definitely keeping an eye on me, put it that way.
Sometimes in my more romantic fantasies of downsizing I wonder what it would be like to live on one of the barges on the Rochdale Canal — but these thoughts never last all that long before I think of the music and movie collections. If I really wanted to do it I’d probably already be doing it. The immediate neighbours would be Canada geese, too.
Less sunny that it has been, so the light wasn’t great today and I made only brief forays out of the house. At least, on this, one of the very few pictures I tried today, I got the focus right.
it’s taken Clare and I over a year to get round about four-fifths of the Calderdale Way’s 50 miles, after today. Still a couple of legs to go yet. Today introduced us to the side valley of Shibden Dale, a beautiful spot and, somewhere previously unknown (except as a brief glimpse now and again from the train, as the line crosses the dale not long after leaving Halifax) despite having lived here 21 years now. The cow looked happy to be there too.
Being 42 