Black terns...

A day of two halves. The morning was spent getting new brake-pads for the Romahome. The afternoon was spent, on a whim, at Rutland Water. With no expectations about what I might see, I was pleasantly surprised to see hobbies hawking for dragonflies, then an osprey soaring over the lake. There’s a nesting pair here. I moved on to another hide, and spent a couple of tranquil hours with a local bird watcher… finding a fair few birds: redshank, common tern, gadwall, ringed plover. An egyptian goose was guarding her goslings. Coots were rounding up their ugly offspring. A great crested grebe was on the nest. A tiny wader breezed in: a sanderling, we finally decided. The afternoon’s highlight was a pair of black terns which landed among the common terns.

Richard Dawkins and I have precious little in common, except that we both went to Oundle School. He was there just before me - we could never have met - but the man who inspired him to study biology was my housemaster. Dawkins tells a story about headmaster Kenneth Fisher, who was chairing a staff meeting when there was a timid knock on the door and a small boy came in: “Please, sir, there are black terns down by the river.” “This can wait,” said Fisher decisively to the assembled committee. He rose from the chair, seized his binoculars from the door and cycled off in the company of the small ornithologist.

I remember knocking at that same door, clutching a note which informed the headmaster that I was there to be beaten. Happy days.

Still licensing a few church pix; this is Salle, Norfolk...