Saturday 18 July 2009

Eat your heart out, Bill Oddie!

One of the benefits of being locked in our secure compound in Leicester is that you get exclusive access to the elegant Castle Park after the riff-raff have been locked out at 7.30pm. Vicky and me were walking through there when we glimpsed a fox so we sat on a bench and watched it. Then another appeared, and another and another - one so young and tame it wandered up to check us out from less than a metre away. Altogether there was a family of six.
It was a "damn, why haven't I got my camera" moments.
A few days later Vicky spotted a tiny grass snake swimming across the Soar, leaving a sinuous wake behind it.
And then last night as we came into the Trent & Mersey a tern began following us, hovering repeatedly to see if our wake disturbed any potential food under the surface. For nearly five minutes he flew, then hovered, then flew, all just feet away - a stunning masterclass of nature's aerodynamics as his wings arched and beat furiously and his tail spread wide and dipped down to create maximum lift and hold him still above the canal. And all for nothing - all that work; all that energy and not a fish did the poor bugger find!

No comments: