Skylarks and bombers

This photograph of a skylark with a beak full of insect for its brood was taken on the former RAF Woodhall Spa airfield in Lincolnshire. In WW2 this flat area of, essentially, lowland heath, was once a place where the ground and skies were crowded with Avro Lancaster four-engine bombers engaged in the bombing of occupied Europe. It then became a place where gravel was dug resulting in large stretches of open water and smaller pools. Today it is a nature reserve in the making and the skies are now filled with greylag geese, skylarks, black-headed gulls, little egrets, buzzards and much more. The obliging bird pictured above posed perfectly, allowing me to get off six hand-held shots, all of which were pretty sharp.


photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Nikon P900

The organist at the Kinema in the Woods

We recently went to see the film, "La La Land", at the Kinema in the Woods in Woodhall Spa, Lincolnshire. This timber building was re-modelled as a cinema in 1922 and has been showing films ever since. In 1984 an old Compton Kinestra organ was installed. When the intermission came along it rose up through the stage in front of the curtains with the organist playing. During his performance he made use, from the keyboard, of the glockenspiels and xylophones (and perhaps other instruments) on a wooden form out of shot at the right of the stage. A great musical performance, a great film, and a great little cinema well worth visiting.

photo © T. Boughen     Camera: Sony DSC-RX100