Kitetail

“When the red kite builds, look to your lesser linen”
William Shakespeare : A Winter's Tale
Day out to catch up with a self-build near Aberavon. Beautiful place, hoping to get a commission to photograph it properly, gorgeous day so a pleasure to be alive.
Snaps finished I headed for Aberavon to meet up and get a few more details from the self-builder, it’s been decades since I’ve visited the area. When I was a full-time QS (over twenty years ago now) I did some cost planning on a commercial development there; when we were kids Mum and Dad used to bring us to the beach. The main reason for remembering it is that it had a shallow shelving beach, so the sea seemed miles away, and there were loads of cuttlefish bones left on the beach – so we’d collect them for our budgie back home.
Fairly quiet on the beach, although several promenaders and cyclists on the walkway. Saw the sculpture and couldn’t quite make it out at first, then I walked around it a bit, to get to know it, and suddenly the kite was right there, its’ very distinctive profile in flight. I’d seen one prospecting earlier in the nearby valley and no matter how often I now see them I still get a bit of a buzz. I well recall driving miles into the valleys of mid-Wales, walking uphill through the drizzle for a couple of hours just for a fleeting glimpse (about a minute) of a kite, they were on the brink of extinction here. Now I just have to drive the M4 through Reading to see several, but they are such magnificent birds with such aerial elegance.