These days I try – really, I do – not to take civilians off at the ankles. But honestly – why would you walk up to a woman who’s leaning over a bridge rail, tracking a dragonfly with a large camera, and say, “There’s not much to photograph round here, is there?” while pulling the kind of face that mimics sympathy, while actually indicating that you get a kick out of other people’s misfortunes? On another day I might have taken a breath, smiled (tautly) and let it pass, but I’m still really QUITE GRUMPY about the car.
So.
I lowered the camera, tilted my head sideways (think Terminator 3), and put him straight. I’m not proud of it (more work needed on the self-control exercises, I fear), but it was a bad day to try Gamesmanship on a Viking.
In better – or at least more edifying – news, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a Little Egret at Stratford Weir. The current state of his eyes may have cost him his long-time Super Spotter status, but it was R who first noticed it, mincing around among the branches and general detritus at the foot of the weir, and I’m indebted to him for that – I’d probably have walked straight past, to get to the dragons at Lucy’s Mill. By the time I took this R had gone off to continue his walk, so he missed the little guy hopping from rock to rock across the flow, aiming for a little area of hardstanding where the weir meets one of the islands in the middle of the river. Having reached his destination the Egret decided that he didn’t like it much after all, so he rock-hopped all the way back again, and at this point I decided I had enough photos of a white heron against white water, and carried on down to the bridge.
R: L2, C10, D43.
