A mirror for Skylarks

There’s a Skylark atop the burnt Gorse above Emsworthy Mire on Dartmoor. It’s standing in classic, erect, Skylark pose, with chin up and crest erected.

I can see the softness and subtlety of its plumage as it flutters by.

I particularly like this shot, showing the sharpness of the focus and the detail of the plumage against a backdrop of burnt Gorse. People starting fires here is a real issue. The ground is dry since we cut and burnt the temperate rainforest down. You’ve got to worry when even the area around a mire is too dry.

Skylarks have distinctive white outer tail feathers:

If you want to know what they look like when they are on the ground, then you may be in for a shock. This isn’t what they normally look like, its just having a bit of a fluff and a spruce. It looks like it’s rearranging its Victorian petticoats.

I don’t understand why they are allowing me to get so close to them until I realise they have this little bundle nearby. I’m lying on the ground, just a few metres away from it, taking photographs when a couple of older walkers walk towards me, stand in front of my lens and ask me what I’m taking photographs of. “There’s a Skylark on that tussock just over there”, I say.

“Which tussock? This one?” she asks waving her walking stick at the bird. It flies. “Well, it was on that one,” I say.

Back home the Puffin Whisperer has been to look at cars, including a red one. She doesn’t like red cars. “Specchietto per allodole,” is how she describes it. That means “a mirror for Skylarks”. It means it’s used for flattering, attracting and deceiving people. Classic.

Here’s a multiple exposure of a flypast to gladden your heart: