The Livin' Is Easy

Watching a piece of down detach itself from a thistle in a slow motion cartwheel, I came face to face with a tiny dinosaur in a gatepost microworld. Pressed inside a vertical fissure of split wood, it blinked slowly.

All photos by Jo Sinclair

A second lizard slunk out and darted around the moss and lichen. I've only once before seen a lizard locally, but that was just a thrashing tail. Losing a tail is a device they are famous for - they leave a mouthful struggling in the jaws of a predator. Snakes and lizards are often no more than a rustle in the grass they're so shy and fast. This pair on the railway footpath must be used to the constant vibration of trains and the banging of the kissing gate each time a walker goes through.

I left behind the blazing dry heat of the railway and headed for the cool greens of the river, to the weeds, willows, waterlilies, fish and kingfisher of England in high summer.

 

All photos by Jo Sinclair