Hop, hop...

I doubt that these photographs will cause Julie Heyward of Unreal Nature any anxiety that I am in competition with her. In fact, with their out of focus and camera shaken fuzziness, I doubt that they would impress anybody at all as photographs. But they do come with a story.

When I first saw the little bird, it was sitting on the kerbstone between sidewalk and road, beside a light controlled crossing. It waited there, hunching down into itself and freezing whenever anyone came close, but not moving away or flying.

Eventually the lights changed, the traffic stopped, pedestrians crossed the road and so did the bird. I don't kid myself that it understood light controlled crossings; I am certain, however, that it knew the traffic would stop if it waited.

Presumably it couldn't fly, since it hopped busily across the road and on down the pedestrian area opposite. It was plainly nervous of all the human beings milling around it, and to fly would have been so much safer; but it hopped, a couple of hundred metres to the park where it started pecking for crumbs.

Much later, I saw it coming back up through the town again from further down. Hop, hop. Past the park. Wait again at the kerb for the lights. Back across the road. On up town and out of sight.