A beady eye

I took my visitor to St David's and took many shots of the cathedral and the bishop's palace looking their best on a sunny day in May, the wind-scoured parapets, gleaming rose window, carved  misericords, vaulted shipwrights' ceiling and  cavernous undercroft all claiming the photographer's attention. But amongst the aged masonry were - as ever - the jackdaws who stuff every crevice and cranny in the stonework with a jumble of twigs and raise their young in these makeshift cradles. Now is the busiest time as  the parent birds fly in and out with beakfuls of baby food, regardless of the wandering sightseers. Each visit prompts a jangling clamour of 'me, me, me!' - it's never possible to satisfy all the youngsters at once. I jammed my face into one low-level nursery hole and was met with a fetid odour and a raucous hissing as the nestlings sensed my presence. 
So it was that this handsome jackdaw claimed my attention over all the other photogenic attractions. Such is biophilia: the Taj Mahal, the Acropolis, the pyramids of Giza are all very fine but in the end living things win hands down every time.

Just over a year ago I was in St David's with Kendall and Sue and I photographed them  against the stonework, here.  What a wonderful visit that was.