Home to roost

I know not everyone takes pleasure in having a rookery next to their home, but I enjoy our neighbours most of the time, and often stop to watch them when I'm shutting up the chickens for the night. This is only a very small part of the flock that musters in waves in the pine trees before they all finally set off to spend the night in the woods below us. I do dissuade them from eating at the bird table, though, as they frighten away the smaller birds.

Moonrise

"Softly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon"

The rest of Walter de la Mare's poem is not very appropriate, since it talks about a harvest moon, I think, and this one wasn't very silver-y. Actually, the way it was cradled in the branches of the tree made me think of Sir Patrick Spens: 

"I saw the auld moon late yestreen

Wi' the new moon in her arms"

I hope in this case it doesn't betoken a "deidly storm"! We've had enough weather for now.