Some days, nature seems further away, as though there were a window between you and the world. #DailyNature The birds are in their world today and I am in mine.

Look at me being all organised! I’m sure there are more relics to be found, but I’ve now got at least one field-book or diary from each of my eight expeditions to Greenland 🇬🇱. I wanted to look something up and discovered all my notebooks were in jumbled chaos, so I’m trying to sort them out!

My Good Morning #DailyNature post from Marbury, Cheshire. Sunrise on the Llangollen Canal. The #FirstBirdOfMyDay today was a noisy back-door robin, followed by blackbird, barn owl, wren, thrush, crow, Fieldfare, yellowhammer… lots to see and listen to early in the day!

Good morning from Marbury, #Cheshire. My #sky today keeps leaping up and throwing water all over us! Birds are flying unusually fast… as long as they are going in the right direction: #windy . #DailyNature #clouds

Good morning from Marbury. The dawn, overstuffed with extravagant promises is spilling them out into the canal, from where they evaporate back into the sky. #DailyNature #life #Cheshire #dawn #SkySky #MorningWalk

I turn out the light We say things that are not true Lying in the dark #haiku #haikuchallenge

For my #DailyNature today: a video that my wife shot on our walk this morning: one of our local Barn Owls picking up snacks. It's amazing how much activity is going on if you keep your eyes open (or have helpful neighbours who keep you informed about things they see happening in their gardens!)

Since I quoted a verse from one of my own poem things earlier, here's the whole of it in case anyone was curious about the context! See picture, or text in ALT text. #poem #writing #PoetSky

Good morning from misty Marbury. This morning’s view down the lane reminds me of a poem I wrote years ago: “It’s human nature to look back / With fondness down the winding track / That brought us here from long ago / And leads to somewhere we don’t know / … “

For weeks, possibly months, I’ve been listening to the steady and reassuring tick of clocks in my study unaware that one of them was ticking but standing still. That sort of thing gives you a lot to think about. #time #clocks #writingprompt #ghostclock

The sun is rising, so the Earth is still turning. Birds are calling through the mist. Lapwing, skylark, raven, crow, robin, blackbird, thrush. Buds are starting to burst out on branches. We’ve seen the year’s first butterflies and bees. You’d think everything should be ok. #DailyNature

Spot the kingfisher. I promise you it is there… it flew right past us in the mist over the canal then settled at the tip of a branch stalk about 100 yards away. I cropped in and boosted the colour in the 2nd image. My iPhone bird photography is pretty spectacular, yes? #ukbirding #birdphotography

Good morning from Marbury. My misty #sunrise today. On the #Cheshire #Shropshire border.

Some of my skies from today. #sky #clouds

Good morning from Marbury on the Llangollen Canal in #Cheshire It’s light by 6am in the mornings now. Watching the sunrise sway back and forth through the year is a simple way of staying in touch with #nature #DailyNature

A Monday-afternoon #shelfie . Books on the top shelf, model railway paraphernalia below. Another eclectic shelf-mix but with some obvious aggregation of related subjects! #booksky #books #library #modelrail

Flicking through TV channels this week I stumbled upon “Chato’s Land”. Not seen that for decades. Years ago I started a painting that included Charles Bronson’s character from the film. Can you spot the other westerns included in my painting? #westerns #painting #art

Good morning from Marbury. My sunrise sky today. Even before light there was a Skylark singing, and as the sun came up there were Lapwings, Yellowhammers, Ravens, Thrushes, Blackbirds, Dunnocks, Crows, Wrens… Lots to listen out for even before daylight! #DailyNature #Cheshire #UKBirds #sky #sunrise

Re-reading after a gap of 40+ years, I just finished “Titus Groan” and am moving straight on to “Gormenghast”. Mervyn Peake. #amreading #books #BookSky

It would have been my Dad's birthday today. That's him in the middle, with his parents, in 1918.

Our house came with a dull fir hedge. We let “weeds” grow through it and one of them is now a lovely yellow-flowered tree! Another one will have beautiful lilac blossoms later in the year. Let nature take its course a bit. #DailyNature

Good morning from Marbury. #sunrise #Cheshire #sky

#DailyNature Mr Mole has been busy adding points of interest to the canal towpath. It’s amazing how much is going on that we only notice because of little signs and tracks and clues.

This might be my best ever haiku. In response to the prompt “decode”. I am easily amused and yes I laugh at my own jokes.

Two birds on the wire, Thirteen ducks on the canal. Me walking the dog.

Sunday morning #shelfie Some parts of my home library are better organised than others. Most of my old movie #books are in one place, at least, even if some non-film items live there too! #library #booksky #cinema

Sound on to hear the bird-life soundtrack to my mid-morning walk, including the noisy lapwings! #DailyNature

M is for mud, and murder, and millions of fish resting with their eyes open in the darkness of the bottom of a lake. Moments of sadness lying in wait on the sea floor. Moments listening to the interminable rain of silt. Moments you won't talk about.

#shelfie #books #BookSky #Reading, on the whole, is good for you. As long as you think about what you have read.

On two short walks from my front door this morning I saw or heard (with my wife's expert help!) Yellowhammer, Skylark, Cetti's Warbler, Lapwing, Kingfisher, Fieldfare, Buzzard, Dunnock, House Sparrows, etc etc. on our lovely rural #Cheshire patch. #patchbirding

“Glaciers play the long game.”

Spring. We watch for signs And accept strange tokens. A chicken that howls like a dog. A dog that lays eggs for a week. Trees that split their bark and burst green into Pale sunlight that bleeds at last through diminishing clouds. #DailyNature #poem

About all this stuff To believe what they believe The poets are fools.

Today’s #DailyNature is a big one: the turning of the Earth, the orbit of the Moon, the angle of the Sun… us in the void of space. Or, if you prefer, the moon setting behind Jill’s barn.

Today’s #DailyNature is an “Oak Beauty” moth. I should have posed him on an oak branch to demonstrate the camouflage, but then you wouldn’t have seen him and you’d have thought my #DailyNature post was a lichen-speckled branch.

For my first #DailyNature post of the season, evidence by my local lake that the beavers have been very enthusiastic in their work!

Good morning from Marbury. This is what my first walk of the day looks like.

One of the less frequently visited and less well organised sections of my home library. 📚 I’m stressed out by the amount of chaos… not just in the library. #books #shelfie #BookSky #library

Good morning from Marbury. #sunrise

The Great West Lawn is looking untended and uninviting. Apparently there was a memo to the effect that winter this year might last forever, and spring might never come.

My wife keeps telling me she doesn't think I'll ever finish my current book-writing project. I used to think it was reverse psychology on her part to help me get moving, but she's said it so often now that I think she really believes it. #amwriting #notwriting #WriterSky #Writing #writingcommunity

I don’t think we have a “normal” tin opener in the house. I’ve always only used this type, since I discovered them for lightweight wild camping back in the 1980s.

Like the Magi with gifts, the glaciers carried these rocks from the North and left them here to tell stories about the ice.

Good morning from Marbury. Cloud country. Moraine country.

Got my copy today of the charity book that included my poem “The unbearable dawn of the following day” (about the day after the loss of a loved one). Does this make me a poet? #writer #writing

From my bed, If I leave the curtains open I can see the stars, Or, in the day time, Jackdaws Doing cartwheels in the narrow strip of sky Above the house.

Delighted to say that one of my poems is in this new charity book of pet poems! amzn.to/46yNzn9

Traditional birthday breakfast.

Happy Birthday to me.

My phone seems inadvertently to have given this photo an appropriate title: “saturation”. And yes, I would like to adjust it. #ukweather The view up our lane from my neighbour’s kitchen. #rain #Cheshire