Hoping for a nibble

“Don’t mind us - we’re just hanging here admiring your fishing skills. Aren’t we boys?”

“Fishing skills, yes.”

“Skills.”

“Yes, skills.”

“Sorry - what was that? We’re making you nervous? Hear that boys - we’re making him nervous!”

“Nervous!”

“Why are you nervous…? You think we’re up to no good? What, us??”

“Us??”

“What, us??”

“That’s very hurtful, isn’t it boys?”

“Hurtful, yes.”

“Hurt.”

“The thought of stealing  your fish  never crossed our minds! Did it boys?”

“Fish.”

“Fish! ”

“FISH!!”

“FISH!!! ”

“What the boys are trying to say is that we’d never swoop down as you were landing a fish, to try to pull it off the hook and eat it ourselves. Nope. Definitely not. That would be outrageous behaviour. You just carry on, and pretend we’re not here.”


I had to go to Bidford today, a task made easier by the fact that the bridge reopened last week (five months and £450,000 of repairs since this happened). I stopped in the car park on the south side of the bridge to take some photos of it, but in the end the shot I liked best was of these gulls riding the wind and watching the fisherman, while he watched them right back. For some reason it looks dreary on this page, but better large.


There were so many excellent entries for Tiny Tuesday this week that I truly struggled to narrow them down: out of a starting field of 97 entries, by my third pass through I still had 20 serious contenders. In the end I went with images that made me say “Wow!”  but I’d be delighted to have taken any of the shots I’m about to mention, and quite a few more besides.

Luckily I get to have six top picks this week rather than five, because I already gave a heart to Hillyblips' outrageously good shot of a toad being dropped into a tank of water when I first saw it on Tuesday, and before realising that it was a TT entry.

The five I’m giving hearts to today are:

lizellen's swanky blue ladybird - which I thought was an iridescent glass nugget when I saw the thumbnail.
jensphotos' ex-hermit crab, photographed on an iPhone - amazing.
Hanulli's tiny snail - I love the focus and the light in this.
AJC's cellar spider - I just can’t resist those eyes (the spider's, not AJC's).
kwdiane's tiny meadow coral fungus, which is fascinating.

Please will you also give some love to the following Honourable Mentions:
Riwaks7's fantail nest
GracieG's snowies,
GoranZebuhr's wilted rose,
trisharooni's fern fronds,
flying's osteospermum,
greg_lovett's woodlouse, and
Shyflamingo's dancing gerbera seed.

Right - I'm off to have a glass of wine and watch the final episode of Unforgotten. If you could all manage to do a worse job next week, you’d make my life a lot easier!