Matisse And Picasso In Lincoln

In Lincoln today a narrow blue and gold window in the weather revealed the cathedral's limestone façade in all its glory. John Ruskin declared Lincoln Cathedral out and out the most precious piece of architecture in the British Isles . . .  

Secondhand bookshop on Steep Hill . . . 

Norman house on Steep Hill, now home to Imperial Teas, one of my favourite shops . . .

After a salad in Pizza Express we headed for The Collection, Lincoln's museum and art gallery. We'd come to see the Modern Masters touring exhibition —  Picasso, Dali, Matisse and Warhol prints from London's V & A . . .

Here's a famous picture of Picasso taken by the French photographer, Robert Doisneau. Picasso looks so alert and playful. Those bread fingers! 

This iconic etching, The Frugal Repast, was one of the first prints Picasso ever made — and it's acclaimed as one of his best. Picasso was always ready to explore new media, and quickly became an outstanding and original adept at many different printmaking techniques. These thin figures at such a frugal table give a world-weary sense of isolation and melancholy . . .    

In contrast,  Picasso's delightful aquatint, The Flea, showing a lady removing a flea from her derrière, makes you smile in its depiction of such a private moment . . .  

Matisse loved printmaking. He was especially fond of portraying nudes. Indeed, he rarely used models with any clothes on at all.

Coming Clean

Love seeketh not itself to please, / Nor for itself hath any care, /  But for another gives its ease, / And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair. WILLIAM BLAKE Songs Of Experience 

Looking back on the softly sloping escarpment of the Lincoln Edge ...

The symbol of the Viking Way is a horned, Viking helmet. (But did you know the Vikings never actually wore horns on their helmets? Yes, folks, it's just another of those myths we all grew up with. Like the one about Father Christmas. Or the one about warts being the mark of the Devil. Or the one about marriages ending happily ever after ...)  

Here the Way approaches Lincoln's South Common. Can you see Lincoln's imposing cathedral on the skyline? This cathedral has been the jumping-off point for many a famous and not-so-famous marriage. For my money, it's one of the finest Gothic buildings in Europe ...

I make my way up Lincoln's quaint and cobblestoned Steep Hill ...

... until the glorious, freshly jet-cleaned cathedral comes into view through the Exchequer Gate arch ...

I take a photo of the writhing, bleached-white figures in the stone frieze on the western facade. This scene depicts the Biblical 'Harrowing of Hell' ...

Bird Watching At Whisby

This afternoon I took advantage of the mild, sunny, early spring weather and stole an hour or two in Whisby Nature Park just south of Lincoln. The chiffchaffs had now arrived, whipping the air with their familiar, faintly monotonous, repetitive 2 to 3 note song. A lot of bird books illustrate chiffchaffs as dowdy, yellow-brown birds. But the reality is far different, especially in today's clear, slanting sunlight. Through my binoculars they looked magnificently beautiful in their lustrous yellow-green plumage when I picked them out in the birch trees' topmost branches. They faced one way, then turned 180 degrees to face the other, and sang for all they were worth in order to stake out their territory.

The yellow flowers of lesser celandines and their heart-shaped leaves covered the grassy bank of the drainage channel by the path circling Grebe Lake. The little islands in the lake were noisy with black-headed gulls which screamed and squabbled. A couple of early butterflies took off in jerky flight but it was impossible to identify them. Blackthorn was blossoming along the eastern edge of the lake. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed briefly one of the first swallows or martins to arrive here from Africa. It vanished before I could take a proper look at it. Bird identification can be so frustrating..!

Later I was lucky to see a sparrowhawk coasting over Willow Lake - a few flaps and a glide, a few flaps and a glide. It was a male, its belly barred bright orange. These birds (indeed, birds of prey generally) are increasing in numbers all over the UK - which is great news. Also I just missed seeing what I think must have been a water vole as it dunked into the reedy, still margins of the lake - the ripples spread out in concentric circles, but it didn't reappear. I scanned in vain for a kingfisher on the Dragonfly Lakes. But I did see 5 pairs of gadwall very close-up. In the sunlight these are the most striking and delicately marked of ducks. I spent ages admiring them.

Though I'm not normally one for lists and statistics, I thought it might be fun to count and list the number of bird species I noted today. The total was 35. Not bad when you consider that most of the wintering ducks and geese have now left, and it's still too early for most of the spring visitors. Also, since Whisby is predominantly reed and rush fringed lake and pond, with willow, alder and relatively new birch woods (interspersed with the odd remanant of older oak forest), the traditional bird species of more mature woodland - jay, woodpecker, nuthatch, treecreeper for example - are harder to find. And it's not really the right environment for waders either.

Anyway, here's the list:

Wren, Robin, Blackbird, Magpie, Blue Tit, Great Tit, Long-tailed Tit, Chaffinch, Goldfinch, Bullfinch, Dunnock, Carrion Crow, Rook, Wood Pigeon, Collared Dove, Green Plover, Kestrel, Sparrowhawk, Mute Swan, Greylag Goose, Canada Goose, Great Crested Grebe, Little Grebe, Coot, Moorhen, Mallard, Gadwall, Shoveler Duck, Tufted Duck, Pochard, Teal, Goldeneye, Cormorant, Chiffchaff, Black-headed Gull.

I heard a pheasant but didn't see it so haven't included it, nor have I included the brief swallow/martin sighting.

Boultham Mere

Yesterday I took a walk down to the Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust Nature Reserve of Boultham Mere. It lies just west of Lincoln's Tritton Road Trading Estate. It was a gift to the Trust from the British Rail Property Board. Not the most likely place for a wildlife haven, I know. I'm sure most Lincoln folk don't even know of its existence. You reach it down a muddy dirt track alongside a drain bordered with old warehouses and scummy farms and fields littered with wireless masts. Over a sluice you enter an inglorious hide overlooking the old railway ballast pit that is now the mere. Here were stationed the 2 fanatically keen bird watchers I'd met 2 years ago on my only other visit! Do they live here, or what? Anyway, as is my custom, I asked them lots of birdy questions about what was to be seen there, and they replied in a most generous and friendly way.

The sun was behind us, illuminating the bright choppy water. The reedbeds and willow saplings quivered in the breeze. Above the railway line on the other side of the pond reared the rock pile of Lincoln Cathedral. Soon the celebrated peregrine falcons would be returning from Africa to nest there. Shoveler duck were feeding in the centre of the mere, filtering the water with their elongated beaks. They looked absolutely gorgeous in their new breeding plumage. There were common gulls, and 2 much larger herring gulls, and lots of black-headed gulls which jinked and dived acrobatically in the wind, then skittered down onto the water, bobbed their heads under, and rose again into the cross-currents of air.

A merlin shot past from right to left - one of our smallest birds of prey, a rarity in these parts, probably on its way to its breeding grounds in the high moorlands. Then, soon after, the bird I'd come here to see, a bird I'd never seen before but knew was here - another great rarity in the UK - flapped across the water from the reedbed on the left to the reedbed on the right. A bittern. I had a great view through my binoculars for perhaps ten seconds. Its yellow legs streamed aerodynamically behind. It was a transient, priveleged moment. How many of these secret, unvisited wildlife places lie on our own ordinary doorsteps, I wonder?

Birch Trees At Whisby

After a very windy night, today I took a walk in Whisby Nature Park. It's quite near here, just south of Lincoln. I think it was formed out of old sand and gravel workings. We used to go there quite often at weekends when the children were young and the dog was alive. The wind had died down a lot but it was still blustery. A low sun emerged out of cloud from time to time, transmuting the dull pewter of the ponds and lakes into shining silver.

A stoat streaked across the path near Grebe Lake, the black tip of its tail clearly visible. A grey squirrel shot up a tree. I only caught a glimpse, as grey squirrels always seem to climb up the other side of the trunk, the side hidden away from any human observers. On the lake itself the usual coots and moorhens and tufted duck bobbed about. And the odd pochard. And a pair of goldeneye, 2 pairs of shoveler and 3 pairs of gadwall. Overhead screamed black-headed gulls, their heads now darkening into chocolate-brown breeding plumage.

It was a little too early for the chiffchaffs and willow warblers, those first spring migrants, and much too early for the nightingales, for which the Park is well known. This is the only place I've ever seen nightingales. You can get very close. They're beautiful close up, not boring brown birds at all. And their song really does live up to all those romantic hyperboles.

Some small Shetland cattle (a rare breed) were lying down very still and quietly on the Grazing Marsh. Just beyond, the pitted Sandhills were awaiting the eventual return of their sand martin colony. On Willow Lake I saw a single little grebe, several great crested grebes, a few more gadwall - and a raft of perhaps 20 shoveler duck feeding in the middle of the lake. And gathered on one rough patch by the lakeside, clumps of purple-stemmed colt's-foot were bursting through. The yellow eyes of these flowers are fringed with long yellow lashes.