village life – Page 9 – don't confuse the narrator

visitors

This creature was buzzing outside my window this morning, investigating all the cracks and crannies that might give access to the space that the old blind used to roll up into.

Folklore says that if a bumble bee comes into the house it means you’re going to have a visitor. I don’t know what it means if a hornet comes into the house via the pelmet box. But perhaps I should be prepared for a lot of visitors with nasty stings.

great oaks and giant redwoods

Wildflowers and grasses
dwarf my three-year oak.
The spring breeze whispers:
Patience! Time will tell.

Of course the tree in the picture isn’t the “three-year oak”. (Though I think the little one would be quite a bit taller if it hadn’t been accidentally strimmed a couple of times in its first year!)

The photo is of one of the trees on the neighbouring plot.

They tower over our greenhouse and when the wind blows in autumn, acorns skitter across the flat roof and I am tempted to run like Henny Penny to warn everybody that “the sky is falling!”
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feather brained

The village is running an ornithological photography competition.

mantis close-up of head and antennae. Probably Empusa pennata adult male

Sadly, although many birds visit the garden – blackbirds, hoopoes, azure-tailed magpies, jays, warblers, black caps, treecreepers… – not to mention the herons down by the river and the hawks and eagles who share our airspace, they all have a nasty habit of flying away before I can get my camera out, let alone focus it.

So unless I build a hide in the greenhouse and stalk what I think must be a pair of black redstarts who are nesting there, or set up the step ladder on the verandah and try and peer into the swallows’ neat adobe home, neither of which seem to be recommended courses of action, I don’t think I’ll be entering the competition.

I have, however, had a little more luck taking pictures of this marvellous creature with his spectacular feathered antennae. (Go on: click the photo and check him out close up!)
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