Abstract Landscape Painter.  Rural Dweller.  Lover of Modernist Art and Design.

28 March

Through the drizzle I can see some marks moving on the far side of a field.  They are almost identical in tone to the growing winter wheat.  Suddenly one of the pale brown marks elongates as the animal turns sideways on, and I recognise the long, lean shape of a hare.

I walk a little further along the concrete road and then stand still and wait.  The three or four are actually eight in total, running around in an oval shape, weaving in and out of each other.  I am guessing that one is a female, a Jill, that is in season.  There will be many sitings like this over the next few weeks.  Suddenly, one leaps into the air and kicks out its back legs — a pale hyphen above the line of the earth.  These are the mad, March hares.

As I stand beside the easel, mixing paint, I look up and am amazed to see that the kestrel has come into the garden.  She is sitting on the fence, which runs parallel to the building, about six metres from the studio window.  I can clearly see her large, dark eyes and sharp, hooked beak.  No doubt she is scanning for field voles, whose holes are all too evident in the small lawn in front of her.

All text & images ©2018 Carol Saunderson

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