Dawn over a Lincolnshire field
The early light was just beginning to break as I headed out this morning.
Walking down the lane, I spotted a kestrel perched on the telegraph wire ahead. I looked up, higher still. One way, the moon was lingering in the sky; the other, the first glow of sunrise was beginning to gather along the horizon.
Pigeons scattered noisily as I passed, and I exchanged morning greetings with a dog walker. Rounding the corner, I glanced back. The sun, glowing rosy pink, was beginning to break the horizon, a low mist settling over the fields.
The atmosphere seemed to grow more beautiful with every step.
I followed the slight bends in the lane, keeping to the verge where I could, trying to walk quietly(!!). I was alert to the possibility of deer. And then, just as I was letting out a sigh of disappointment, three of them broke cover, bounding from copse to hedge, then on to the next patch of shelter. There and gone in the blink of an eye. Far too quick for me to focus my phone camera, let alone capture them.
I stood for a moment, in awe of their speed, and of the way they simply disappeared, slipping into the shelter of the foliage as though they had never been there at all.
I carried on.
The sun rose, glorious, and once again I stopped to take it all in. The fields and hedgerows were heavy with dew, every blade of grass and twig glistening. The mist crept slowly across the landscape, a gossamer veil softening the rising sun.
I wandered towards the grass field, hoping to film some cows (trying to think ahead and get some BRoll footage for YouTube…). But apart from a particularly noisy pheasant, the field was empty.
Turning for home, I noticed how the mist was thickening. Could it now be called fog? The colours had shifted from the rosy peach of earlier to pewter and shades of grey, edged with gold. Gradually, even that golden sliver was swallowed, up until the landscape was shrouded in grey.
The lane ahead had become gloomy, the familiar bends and hedgerows softened by the mist.
And yet, I could only marvel at how nature had offered me so many different vignettes in such a short space of time. The moon, the first light of sunrise, the deer, the changing colours, the mist drawing its veil across the fields.
Each moment fleeting. Each one different.
I came home thinking that, if only I could hold on to all those little moments, there was a painting in there somewhere.
Perhaps more than one.
