We suffered another stomach-lurching dip in the weather rollercoaster today – unexpectedly because it was far worse than forecast, and upsettingly given the number of inverts which have recently been lulled into emergence by a false sense of spring, and are now having to cope with the return of winter weather. Because we couldn’t think of anything more enjoyable to do, R and I went to Hillers, where we drank coffee and ate chips while cooperatively doing a word puzzle on our phones, and I spent an extremely brisk twenty minutes or so in the bird hide.
I love the female Siskin in today’s second photo, just because I love a female Siskin (grey is so elegant – or so I tell myself when I look in the bathroom mirror each morning). But in the end she couldn’t beat the male Chaffinch in the main image, whose immaculate breeding plumage and fabulous conformation – just look at that leading line! – would almost certainly have won him top spot on ninety seven days out of a hundred.
This evening a truly horrendous storm came over us, with destructive levels of wind and lashing rain beating against the house. We seem to have survived relatively unscathed, and I can only hope that the same is true of my poor bees and bee-flies.
R: L2, C6, D14.
