Thursday, 15 January 2009

sharp focus

Yesterday I was out and about getting photos of trees for a picture I'm working on. Near the side of the Avon Gorge, I heard the cry of a peregrine falcon, hurried over to the edge. Too late to see it in flight, but a watcher helpfully lent me her binoculars and pointed out the two falcons perched over in the woods at the other side.


They were a bit far away to photograph, but this jackdaw wasn't.






Then a little later a buzzard flumped down in a tree just by me. Here it is.


It's nice having all this wildlife stuff on my doorstep, along with all the advantages of the city, like the slob in the Jaguar who tried so hard to force his way past me, gunning his engine just behind me as I cycled along a very narrow residential road on my way home.

Thhhhhrrrrrppp.


Pencils are sharpened, rapidograph pens soaking in cleaning solution, just about run out of advanced displacement activities- cups of tea, Tunnocks Snowballs, cleaning the bathroom sink.



Time to get going then. But as Chandira kindly posted a haiku about her new teapot on my last blog entry, I'll pause to submit this one about the joy of putting on new specs after floundering around for ages in a state of un-focus. Small things can be big things, you know.


How finely woven,
This spider's web by my head.
Thank you, nice new specs!

4 comments:

  1. I've been reading about how to make haikus today. It will be a while before I go public. It looks like complicated simplicity to me. I was interested to read that cleaning the bathroom sink is on your list of 'advanced displacement activities'; i clean the grouting between the bathroom tiles with a toothbrush; unless it needs doing.

    My latest birds are coots, I've never seen them on the marsh here before.

    If I'm being harrased by aggresive drivers I usually give them a friendly wave with my best 'do I know you?' expression. It really annoys them

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  2. PS: When I start seeing too many spider's webs I leave my glasses off.

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  3. She tries, Caroline. It's wonderful seeing a fine line sharply-defined, after having to lug a magnifying glass around for closeup work.

    I await developments with interest, Anji. I stick to the seventeen syllable model because it gives me a structure to work in, even though apparently this is wrong. It works for me, and it means I don't have to delve deeply into Ku or whatever it is. Furthermore I just found out (from 3Lights on my blogroll) that some of my stuff may be bogus senryu rather than bogus haiku. O dear.

    I've tried bleach and hydrochloric acid to make the grouting clean. Neither seem particularly successful.

    Me too! I do the waving thing too! Pisses 'em off something marvellous, don't it?

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