This morning I went for a 5 mile walk, and this afternoon I went for a 5 mile run. From one to the other the sky turned from grey to blue, but the wind stayed howlingly cold; a bitter, scything wind straight from the jaws of Siberia.
The mallards are very feisty, and the males I saw today when the sun had come out were in beautiful condition, a real irridescence about their bottle green heads. Further down the cycle path when I was running, a raptor of some kind struggled against the wind before giving up. Initially thought it was a kestrel but its wings looked a little rounded so it may have been a sparrowhawk. Over the marina, above the big dutch barge I wish I owned, a stuby cormorant was making no headway into the wind either, yet it did not give up, even though it was going absolutely nowhere.
Doing slightly better as I saw it over Sconce Hills Park - the Valley Prospect end - was a heron making its way North to South over the football pitch. Legs trailing, wings beating the air slowly, I had a great view as it went straight over my head, the dark lines down its neck being particularly apparent. I was willing it to set down on a TV aerial on the houses by the park, but it kept on going, slowly, and far more gracefully than I could manage into that frozen breeze.
No comments:
Post a Comment