Lie Down, Look Up

I had just written this following post when I saw that Helen and David (see comment on previous post) were ahead of me and already doing it, well here goes anyway.

Well it was a nice day, warm and dry and the boardwalk looked quite comfortable so I thought why not have a lie down and see what Flanders looked from down there. When you get to know a site really well sometimes it is good to try to look at it from a different perspective or with new eyes. This was my corporate justification for lying on the boardwalk on a sunny day for 15 mins, just in case my line manager is reading this - if he isn't then it was just a nice thing to do.

Being low level meant that nodding cotton grass and the sky was about all you could see so immediately it felt like the volume was turned up in my ears. The Moss became alive with busy insects and birds. A great buzzing came from all around as flies, beetles and bees criss crossed above me. The bird song got louder with meadow pipit display songs all around, the tinkling and trilling of skylarks and willow warblers filling the background and piercing it all the was the excited common gulls. Spread across the sky the cirrus clouds confirmed the fine weather and then a dot slowly moved across the cloud wall paper resolving itself as a sparrowhawk given away by the flap, flap circles it flew. Swooping around it feeding on the aerial plankton of insects the swallows from surround farms and swifts from nearby villages. And then a buzzard stirred things up as it sedately soared across, sending the gulls in a frenzy. And it between all of this there was time to appreciate the cloud shapes that many people don't give a second glance to.

So why not take a few minutes to lie down and look when you are next at Flanders, but I hope the Labradors don't find you !