As life as we know it collapses, never to return, I have been struck by a strange double-edged feeling: paranoid calmness. There is less and less for me to do. My business has closed leaving us with no family income. My children are at home and will be until September. I am calm because there is very little to do. But I am paranoid because the calmness cannot last.
There were at least 10 Chiffchaffs in the Lye Valley area this morning. Seven of them were feeding around the tiny pond at the side of the Churchill Hospital. It was sunlit and protected from the cold easterly wind. A warm, insect-rich pool of calmness. Chiffchaffs were flycatching out over the water. Occasionally they swooped down to take insects from the water’s surface. On one occasion a Robin did the same. I spent over half an hour watching and photographing these tiny olive and grey birds, as they flicked, sailed, bill-clicked, called and sang in the willows around the pond. Their colours changed as frequently as the light did. The calmness of this scene felt eternal.
