R and I had to go to Warwick this morning, and on the way back we stopped off in Stratford so we could top up our already sky-high sugar levels, and I could get a photo. We parked in Old Town as usual, and walked in along the north side of the river, through the RSC’s Avonbank Gardens. As we wandered along the boardwalk by the chain ferry landing, R suddenly said, “Look!” and pointed to his right, as a male Migrant Hawker flew slowly but steadily past at about waist height. I had no time to even try and take a photo, so we both swivelled to watch him in the hope that he would land, but even though his pale grey abdomen suggested that he was pretty cold, he kept doggedly moving on – still presumably hoping to find a female partner with whom to propagate his DNA. A November hawker shot would have been a first for me, I think – but even without a photo, I’m hopeful that the Warwickshire BDS Recorder will accept my sighting and add it to the county database.
Deprived of a dragon I hadn’t even been expecting, I turned my attention to photographing birds, and managed some quite nice gull portraits, despite the execrable light. R thinks there’s something a bit odd about how much I like this one, but it amuses me every time I look at it and that’s a good enough reason for me to want to post it – however, I’ve added an extra, in case you don’t care for gulls or leaves, or share my sense of humour.
My second image is a view along the path towards the main door of Holy Trinity, showing the poppy memorial that’s just appeared there in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday. Yarn-bombing happens around Stratford quite frequently for one reason or another, including on these trees, and I don’t always appreciate it, but I think these crocheted flowers are rather nice, and the whole thing looks very effective.
