New paintings and regular art updates.
Rehearsal day. We went to find out about a production of ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ended up getting the parts of Mr and Mrs Fezziwig. The rehersal was at a place called Mellards and I was impressed by this mural of a duck painted on the wall. I’m not sure about the stars/ gunshot holes? I hope no one would shoot at it! Anyway got to learn a few lines… Eek!
Can you see the bird on the nest? I think it might have been a coot or a moorhen, but it was hidden under the overhanging branches of an alder tree, floating on the small lake at Westport. We also saw two Swans with eight cygnets swimming behind them. It’s that time of year in the Northern Hemisphere when nature renews itself. You see ducks with their ducklings too. I hope we get hedgehogs in our garden again too. Their babies are called hoglet’s.
A strange looking dusk with red on its head. We only saw one of them. I don’t know what kind it is but I think it must be a male one. If there ever was an ugly duckling could this be it? No I’d say an interesting one! Medium sized, pink footed, friendly!
Duck and drake Mallards. The male duck was doing some duck diving. The lake was so beautiful and the reflection was sparkling. The duck dived and I grabbed a shot of it. Ripples circled it. The water almost looks like quicksilver. Worth going for a walk to catch this. X
We saw this duck and her ducklings today, she must have had a second brood.
I took a few photos as one of the ducklings was jumping on and off its mother’s back. I tried hard but it was only fir a few seconds and I think if I’d done a film of them they would have been too far away to capture the details.
They were sweet. Cute. I hope they grow up sturdy and healthy. X
A duck and a coot. If this was a race, the coot is winning. The twig looks like the finishing line for a rowing race. The duck is a Mallard drake, I don’t know if he’s preening or asleep? I love the ripples on the water. My phone camera has reacted to the bright light and has reduced the exposure time so it appears darker. You can move the position of your camera to affect this. If you look at an area with less bright light then the exposure would open up again. But I like the strong contrast in this image and the depth of colour. It’s difficult to see the details on the birds because they are in deep shadow.
After a long walk I decided to get a Thai takeaway. Mine was a red curry with duck. I had a small amount of special fried rice and stole a few of the King prawns and squid from my hubby’s yellow curry because he had had most of the rice. It was really tasty!
From Sawadee Thai Taste in Stoke….
I wish I was in that boat,
floating on the lake,
watching the ducks
taking flight
with great strides
across the water….
Flap, flap, fly
soaring over me
reflected in the water
like the white sails
of the boat
stirring in the breeze
rippling the water.
Floating along, calm.
This was a sign in a local museum that someone shared on Facebook.
It was strange coming to live here. In my home town people would say hello chick, or love. But Stoke people say ‘duck’. I had no idea of the origins, and the first few times I heard it I literally did duck! I thought someone was warning me! Eventually, though, I got used to the greeting. Together with the phrase ‘cost kick a bow agin a woe an it it wi yer hed til ya bost it?’ I may have misspelt this but it means ‘Can you kick a ball against a wall and hit it with your head until you burst it?’
As you can see, the old dialect and pronunciation is interesting. But as someone with a west Midlands accent. Oim not reealy botheered abowt iyt.
We just went for a walk round the small lake at Westport and decided to feed the birds. Mostly pigeon and Canada geese with a mix of a few others and some swans and ducks. I fed the pigeons by putting the food on the top of a fence. Once they were confident I tried holding the food out in my hand and they pecked the food while standing on the fence, finally they all took turns standing on my hand and pecking the food out of it. I only did it because I knew I could wash my hands afterwards.
The management of the lakes are now with Staffordshire Wildlife Trust and the whole place looks more managed but wild if you see what I mean. Colourful poppies and other wildflowers surround the visitors centre. Drifts of nettles feed butterflies. I saw an electric blue damsel fly skittering about them. I also saw a peacock butterfly and a cabbage white.
We were sitting up on the balcony at the visitor centre when we saw a large carp in the lake. It’s pale colour meant it was visible from above. Looking at its size compared with some terns sitting on a piece of wood in the lake it must have been about 18 inches long.
An enjoyable afternoon.
Mallaband-Brown