Psychedelic Furs

                                                                                         All photographs by Jo Sinclair

I was aiming at goldfinches when an old boy I often see on the cycle path stopped to chat. He told me about the woodpeckers in his garden: 'a black and white one and a green one'. 'The green one's aerating my lawn for me', he said. 'Bright green! I've got green mieces too'. 'Mieces?' I asked, turning away from the camera again. Green mice perhaps? 'Mices', he confirmed. Well, maybe the mice have been squeezing past wood covered in algae. Come to think of it I did the same myself the other day, wondered how the 'grass stain' on my coat had got there, but remembered I'd been leaning on a tree. Or: maybe the green rodent visitors are escapees from the research laboratories that proliferate in South Cambs (our nearest being no more than a mile and a half away)? I vaguely remember seeing glow in the dark genetic modifications in the press.

The man sees colours vividly. 'I used to be a printer you see', he said. 'In the spring all the different greens out here are amazing'. We were looking at trees thick with glossy green ivy, which he doesn't like. 'My father used to say it chokes them', he said. (It doesn't. It often means the tree is already dead or dying, but ivy is not a parasite).

On our left a flock of fieldfares had landed to have a drink. On our right the goldfinches and a single great tit were tweaking seeds out of thistle and burdock heads. 'All of this I'm trying to photograph would be tricky to print' I suggested. 'Tricky' he agreed. The loud red and yellow of the goldfinches became surprisingly discreet among the collapsing cat's cradle of half an acre of brown stalks.

By the River Granta three swans dabbled and preened in the puddled field where the river had overflowed. A tiny down feather settled in front of me and spider threads waved rainbow flashes in the sunlight. The clear still night had left frost, but high winds and warm air are on the way again; strange funnels, scuffs and wisps were forming in the day's blue sky.

All photographs by Jo Sinclair