Below, my brother, Adam Dare's picture of the eclipse taken in Wales, below that, my foggy eclipse inStreatham, South London.
The partial eclipse of the sun this morning was impossible to see as a dense bank of cloud covered Streatham, though it might have been dingier than usual, a few, mostly middle aged people, gathered in the Rookery to try and see it, a woman with a child embarassed him by making us sing happy birthday for his 4 th, he seemed intensely embarrassed. I took my colander with me to view the eclipse and saw people sniggering! On the news it looked wondrous, we all reminisced about the great eclipse of 1999, which I saw in Falmouth.
By 3 pm it was a dazzling spring day, I went to see the Sparrowhawk and was rewarded by first his flight into the woods then after I lost him, he was flushed out by an aggressive army of crows, I saw him very clearly, high in a beech tree, as the light caught his white chest, then he flew to another tree, looked peculiarly fluffed up as if wet, then the crows surrounded him again and he flew to another branch, I later saw him flying very high over the common, an hour or so later he flew back into the woods, Lesley joined me and we again saw him, this time chased by two magpies, he seemed very fluffed up and appeared to be washing under his wings, I'm still unclear re the gender, but he has a very white chest, light markings around the eye, what seemed like lighter markings in the neck, white flecks on his back and a long dark blueish tail, some reddish parts around the britches, couldn't see the eyes clearly enough today. We also saw a beautiful little wren very close up, colour of a two pence piece with delicate dots along the wings, then saw three long, long loose lines of geese, like sprawling signatures in the distantce, flying East, the world seems to be coming alive with birds right now.
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