Realms of Gold

A molehill on the towpath!

#DailyNature Mr Mole has been busy adding points of interest to the canal towpath. It’s amazing how much is going on that we only notice because of little signs and tracks and clues.

You should remedy that condition!

This might be my best ever haiku. In response to the prompt “decode”. I am easily amused and yes I laugh at my own jokes.

I don't like decode.
It makes by dose run. I sneeze.
And I talk fuddy.

#haikufeels #prompt #decode

Two birds on the wire,
Thirteen ducks on the canal.
Me walking the dog.

I wrote about the likelihood of future water wars (essentially glacier wars) in my 1999 book "Glacier Nature and Culture".

Other sections less so. I’m not sure why Richard Feynman and T.S.Eliot are so close together here.

Sunday morning #shelfie Some parts of my home library are better organised than others. Most of my old movie #books are in one place, at least, even if some non-film items live there too! #library #booksky #cinema

Ha ha I use a version of that expression several times every day... it is perfectly normal in everyday English (that is, English English!). "What are you on about?" is a question my wife asks me most times I speak!

Yes on this walk there were also robins, dunnocks, linnets, redwings, blackbirds, wrens, bluetits, grey wagtails, house sparrows, great tits, crows, jackdaws, Jays, magpies, Goosanders, mallard, songthrush, goldfinch, pheasant, ... and more

Sound on to hear the bird-life soundtrack to my mid-morning walk, including the noisy lapwings! #DailyNature

On a dawn walk, First Bird was a distant Tawny owl asking why we were so late to the day, then Lapwing, Skylark, Yellowhammer, Raven, my 1st Chiffchaff of the year and a silent, sweeping Barn Owl patrolling the fields alongside the canal. #FirstBirdOfMyDay Wrens and blackbirds were noisy throughout

M is for mud, and murder, and millions of fish resting with their eyes open in the darkness of the bottom of a lake. Moments of sadness lying in wait on the sea floor. Moments listening to the interminable rain of silt. Moments you won't talk about.

A shelf of books illuminated by fairy lights.

#shelfie #books #BookSky

#Reading, on the whole, is good for you. As long as you think about what you have read.

Here too, but I'm lucky to live in a spot where they are both quite commonly to be found. Likewise the Yellowhammer.

On two short walks from my front door this morning I saw or heard (with my wife's expert help!) Yellowhammer, Skylark, Cetti's Warbler, Lapwing, Kingfisher, Fieldfare, Buzzard, Dunnock, House Sparrows, etc etc. on our lovely rural #Cheshire patch. #patchbirding

View along the canal in the early-morning dusk, with the past-full moon behind trees.

I'm too jumbled to remember which was the actual #FirstBirdOfMyDay but was very pleased on the early walk to hear Yellowhammers in the field for the first time this year, and to see a flash of Kingfisher - supersonic between the reeds and along the canal into the mist.

“Glaciers play the long game.”

Spring.
We watch for signs
And accept strange tokens.
A chicken that howls like a dog.
A dog that lays eggs for a week.
Trees that split their bark and burst green into
Pale sunlight that bleeds at last through diminishing clouds.

#DailyNature #poem

Moon-set over Ed's farm... and the moon's reflection through which a Kingfisher just flew!

5.45am and dark but already blackbirds, robins and a song thrush were noisying up the neighbourhood. Then a close-by dunnock drowned them all out. Along the canal in the dusk a kingfisher flew across the moon's reflection, but was too fast for me to photograph. #FirstBirdOfMyDay #DailyNature

About all this stuff
To believe what they believe
The poets are fools.

Thank you!

A near-full moon setting behind rural buildings at dawn.

Today’s #DailyNature is a big one: the turning of the Earth, the orbit of the Moon, the angle of the Sun… us in the void of space. Or, if you prefer, the moon setting behind Jill’s barn.

A crow. So far away across dark fields that it sounds tiny and makes the world seem huge. Like Proust's far-away train whistle that "punctuates the distance like a bird in the forest". #FirstBirdOfMyDay #DailyNature

I used to really love the Clangers when I was growing up... they were exactly my era. I remember we used to speak Clanger to each other, whistling or hooting instead of talking!

Photo of an “Oak Beauty” moth. It is cunningly camouflaged to blend in with lichen covered tree branches.

Today’s #DailyNature is an “Oak Beauty” moth. I should have posed him on an oak branch to demonstrate the camouflage, but then you wouldn’t have seen him and you’d have thought my #DailyNature post was a lichen-speckled branch.

Ha ha! The iPhone camera is so clever at making everything sharp and bright that it was quite an effort tricking it into taking a photo that actually reflected how the morning "really" was.

A tree trunk showing distinctive evidence of being chewed by one of the resident beavers.

For my first #DailyNature post of the season, evidence by my local lake that the beavers have been very enthusiastic in their work!

"enstoned" is a great word!

A dark and blurry photo of the view along the towpath beside the Llangollen Canal between bridged 22 and 23 around dawn.

The #FirstBirdOfMyDay was a startled Fieldfare, closely followed by startled Pheasant, Moorhen and Rook. I'm afraid I startled a few things this morning. Then Mr Tawny Owl piped up, a little late to the show. And then exploding flamboyantly into the morning the crazy Song Thrush with "Me! It's me!"