Cat, Collar Dove, Moon and Middlesbrough

I'm gonna be lazy today (I think I've earned it after staying up late last night) and just post some pictures. They were taken today though, so I'm not cheating - that much.

(click to enlarge)

This first one is of two collar doves in the garden (I think they're collar doves), and the next two are of the Riverside Stadium under a blue sky. We were running late so there are no people in the shot, but it was fairly full and noisy inside - not that you'd know from the images. I still haven't quite mastered the phone camera yet, so I never quite capture what my eyes are seeing. Modern phone cameras tend to make everything seem more far off and less intimate to me, but again it might just be my inability to use them.

I had a similar problem when I was trying to get pictures of the August summer moon a few days back. It looked so big and impressive as I was walking home, but the camera could only render a white spot in the sky. The zoom making little difference.

With my own eyes I could see the 'rabbit in the moon' with crisp enchanting realness. A reminder that a picture is not reality, and that the online world will always be inferior in its beauty to lived reality.

I also caught this picture of a stray cat catching some shade in the garden a few days back. British wildlife in its nearest and dearest form.

People talk about 'rewilding' Britain, but wildness is not the way. We're creating a garden paradise here, where every bird, cat and hedgehog is a pet-like citizen free to come and go as they please, but tamed by the human presence.