Strawberries and the object of his desire

He is not a popular visitor for most soft fruit growers.

As always the debt of gratitude I owe to my only photographic models outweighs the loss of any blackcurrants or strawberries that may have taken place during this shoot.

I adore working with him, and surely he knows it.

Sometimes he just lands on this rock to show off his good side. Mostly he is swooping across the wild garden or rustling around deep in the fruit bushes. Today he is demolishing strawberries and courting a young one.

Like any old friend, I study him. The lens gets me closer. My every move has to be frozen and quiet. His alertness is a little off kilter today as the object of his desire makes a brief appearance. She is a very young hen blackbird, a lovely speckled brown in colour.

His one effort at romance is rebuked and she disappears. The Blackbird continues on his well worn flight path across the garden and the dish of the day, strawberries, takes his attention once more.

Hen Blackbird is one of my featured galleries at the moment.

The mother shaped Hen Blackbird

It's been a busy time for myself and the birds around here. There are a number of nesting families very close by and I am watching their progress from my desk.

There's a nest of Blue Tits just above the window, a pair of Great Tits under the granite bird bath, and a number of Blackbirds living in the willows. Out of the corner of my eye I catch them swooping back and forth; without really studying them, I know everything about their movements.

One flight path takes the Blackbirds perilously close to the window pane as they angle in to round the corner of the house. Sadly a Hen Blackbird went head first into the window this morning and landed in the gravel below.

When I placed her little warm body on the paper, her wounds were obvious and there was a tiny droplet of blood coming from her spectacular beak. I studied her in detail, her feathers, structure and colour. The hens are brown, and are the most beautiful mother shaped birds.

These are the facts; we are born, we live and then sooner or later, one day, we meet our end. I'm watching the other Blackbirds now to identify her mate. One sat for ages just above the spot, singing in the rain and grooming ferociously. I'm not sure if they grieve? I'm not sure about anything much when it comes to these mysteries..... 



The Hen Blackbird album is here

Blackcurrants and Blackbirds

We had far too many and the plan was to make a liqueur. Blackcurrants make a wonderful boozy drink called Cassis, perfect for Christmas, when it should be ready for drinking.  KIR Royale, a mixture of Cassis and Champagne will never EVER be forgotten, once tasted. It's the perfect cocktail at a party for two............preferably in Paris!!

Anyway, the Blackbirds seemingly had a similar notion. As the damp evening drew in, Mr. Big put in an appearance amongst the blackcurrants and SMUG was written all over his face!

To see him drooling drunkenly in the bushes, almost unable to move with the feed of fruit inside him, made me reach for the camera and I even caught him with the evidence in his big orangey gob!

A fair swop I thought.

~You will find us here~

You will find us here.

Watching him as he watches the world. 

The early sun sparkles on our turned field,

radiating a murky greenish light.

 Dewy grass emerges,

spreading from the east with morning,

but be assured

none of it is growing under our feet.

Out of an Irish mist

The mist has been down for a few days now. It pours in from the sea when summer conditions dis-improve. It gets into your brain, slows down your thinking and creates a cotton wool world outside the window. 


Feeling more lost than usual, it was impossible to get out. Work commitments mounted, weeds grew out of control, everything drooped under the weight of moisture. A big well of sadness seemed to pervade this mist. My first summer without my Dad in the background, wearing his summer shirt and his bright yellow sun glasses that he got from the National Council for the Blind .

And me, keeping busy to avoid at all costs the slow misty days of the wettest June on record. Avoiding  the desperation that comes with the shortness of life and the quickening of age.

When out of the dark Irish mist a Blackbird female, a mucky brown bird, taking an unusual length of time to get her bearings, caught my attention and brought me back to earth, just in time to snap her before she flew away.




Out of the mist prints and downloads available here