Monday 26 March 2012

Hunter

At about 5-o-clock this afternoon I started tidying up my building tools and ferrying them back to the shed from where I'm building a wall. Silently and swiftly a bird flew past me at waist height and landed ahead of me in the low afternoon sunshine almost spayed over the tiles of the neighbour's roof. Clearly deliberately poised by the edge of the gable, so that it could peer around the side of the building, it sat motionless and within 10 feet of the nesting sparrows I watched only yesterday. I had time to call my sons over and to hold them up so that they could see it, sharp eyes and yellow feet, and then to run inside to find my camera. I managed to sneak up from behind the apple tree in the front garden to get some photographs quickly, having learned to shoot first and think later. I managed to get about 10 photographs before with a twitch of it's head it dropped off the side of the roof and flew low and away across the back garden again in search of other distracted springtime sparrows, clearly not enjoying the audience.



1 comment:

  1. One day sparrows, the next a sparrowhawk...! I like the inevitability of the narrative.

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