Six (Brief) Things…
…for your Bank Holiday Monday
Thing 1 – Yellow Wagtail
“Yellow wagtail in a field of oil seed rape. A shot I’ve always wanted to get.”
Kevin Morris, Derbyshire birder and photographer, got this stunning picture at Markeaton Stones in Derbyshire.
Apologies if you don’t like yellow.
Thing 2 – Wisteria
Ours has reached *that* stage.
But I rather wish I was in Venice, where my sister-in-law Laura has been on the hunt, finding riches galore (even though, as she says, it would be nice to have Smell-o-vision).
Thing 3 – Going Raaa
To Chipping Norton, where I spoke about Taking Flight to a room full of people lured there by free tea and cake. The festival (‘ChipLit’) was celebrating its 10th year, and it was a great pleasure to be part of it.
The next morning, I listened to Richard Smyth talk about his latest, The Jay, The Beech And The Limpetshell, a story of ‘finding wild things with my kids’.
“Take only photographs, people say. No, say the kids. We want sticks, sticks that look like swords, sticks that we can ride like horses, sticks for waving and running and going raaa.”
I’m just a few pages in, and already hooked. Do buy it, whether you are a parent or not.
Thing 4 – Hobby
From there to RSPB Otmoor, a few miles from where I grew up, and the definition of “this was all fields when I was a lad”. Now it’s one of the best winter sites for starling murmurations.
Yesterday it gave me my first cuckoos of the year, a variety of warblers, house martins, swallows…
But you don’t want to read my list of birds – nothing more tedious. Picture instead the most agile of falcons, the hobby (so good they named a tabletop football game after it), dancing in the sky, jinking and turning on sharp pointed wing, catching insects at will – a minute spent watching a hobby is as good a remedy for ills as I know.
Thing 5 – Statue
I like this, from the silly Twitter account ‘People Doing Shit With Statues’.
I am, as I might have said before, easily pleased.
Thing 6 – Book
Writers owe a great deal to their cover designers. Jo Walker did the cover for Taking Flight, and it’s the best possible advertisement for the book.
Publication week begins today. Any or all buying, sharing, or general spreading the word would be enormously appreciated. Just click below.
Love the wagtail!