Downpour

A SONG THRUSH hunts on a garden lawn, shuttling beakful after beakful of small worms to a nest hidden in an ivy-covered tree. It appears to listen as much as watch to locate its prey.

It is sunny and breezy all day, then a towering mass of grey cloud over the Pennines brings a premature dusk. A white cart horse grazing in a foreground field is several tones brighter than the sky behind it, like a chalk figure cut into a hillside. Within ten minutes the storm has advanced a matter of miles.

Rooks still nest near to where they nested forty years ago at Top Lane Plantation near Bretton. Now they are much reduced in number and the rookery has moved a clump of trees next to the roundabout.

The downpour is heavy but short, more or less over after 15 to 20 minutes. A patch of clear sky soon appears in the west. The weather map shows a small cold front moving west to east across the country.

I was lucky, seeing all this from the comfort of a car. My photographer friend John was sitting up a tree overlooking a badger sett. By the time he got back to the car he was soaked through; 'I can't wear waterproof clothes for badger watching, they rustle too much. Besides it was a beautiful evening when I set out!'

A Toad in the dripping dark garden has more stripes than most I've seen.

Richard Bell,
wildlife illustrator
E-mail;'richard@daelnet.co.uk'