Nature's Diary

I find the picture today that I had cut out from the Telegraph Magazine of November 6th to send to David. It depicts a man, standing on a high rocky outcrop, looking into the distance, surrounded by his 7 beautiful dogs. I immediately assumed it was Afghanistan. It was not. It was Italy, the Amalfi coast. The man, Gianni Menichetti, has been living in a wild canyon in the area for over 30 years. He is a fighter, a fighter for the environment, fighting to keep this undisturbed area out of the developers’ hands. The photographer is Carlo Bevilacqua, the photograph, stunning. He was shortlisted for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize at the National Portrait Gallery. I wonder if he won. And if he did, I do hope that 100,000 people don’t descend all of a sudden on the wild canyon to meet Gianni and his dogs, destroying his solitude and his peace of mind, upsetting his dogs and trampling underfoot the myriad inhabitants that live beneath us, on and under the skin of the planet.

It’s a record for Hazel. There are 14 goldfinches at 14.04 at her feeder this afternoon.

The moon is a bright coin in the water just outside the door. Rio stands on the doorstep, reluctant to get her feet wet in the moat that surrounds the house after several days of continuous rain. She stands peering into the darkness, her nose raised, sweeping her territory. It’s chilly, and a quick nudge moves her off the step finally and her large speckled paws slap onto the surface and smash the moon into a thousand fleeing shards. As she moves further away, they come together, a furious, writhing, disjointed snake at first, then a wriggling ribbon of light getting smaller and smaller till I am once again staring down at a bright coin looking up at me from the still water.