BLITHE SPIRIT

I'm glad the sun came out eventually and I could go up to Spion Kop cemetery to see and hear the skylarks. Here's one not looking terribly blithe but letting me get quite close, probably because it was leading me away from the nest. The cemetery has a lot of ground-nesting birds - skylarks, meadow pipits and partridges, and is a flight-training ground for lots of other fledglings later on - and it occurred to me today, seeing the nearly-completed new housing estates right up to the walls of the cemetery on either side, that once the houses are taken and people start getting cats (which I love, by the way), the poor birds could well be decimated in future years.