Starlings

8 February 2014

West Yorkshire

8.30 a.m.; A starling is perching on a neighbour's roof, leaning over to inspect the barge-boarding. It makes its way gradually up to the apex of the roof where a second starling flies in to perch next to it. The pair fly off together up the road.

Moon over the wood

5 p.m.; I've been painting scenery all day but all indoors in a school hall for a pantomime so I give myself half an hour or so to make rapid pencil and watercolour sketches through back, front and patio windows. The wind is, unusually, from the south-east. It brings rain and at half past five it's still raining as the light fades and the moon, high over the wood, steadily gets brighter.