Winter sun and reeds 1

One of my favourite places to go walking is out by Hale foreshaw. Hale is quite a large village now on the far side of John Lennon airport from me, anyway. There are footpaths leading down to the river Mersey. In places, you can step down onto the foreshore. It is a fest for the eyes with wildlife. What we hoped was a peregrine falcon became a buzzard; no less exciting when you haven't seen that many buzzards and certainly not close up! A field of curlew, geese, gulls, sand martins, reed buntings and pipits and thrushes. One day, I will even remember to take my binoculars with me! Past the lighthouse, now a family home, we were stopped in our tracks several times by the bright sun lowering in the sky. Here, I saw the sun through waving fronds of reeds several feet high. 'I've got to paint this!', I told myself. Also, it's a study. Because I'd not done any painting since before Christmas, I just wanted to feel the paint on the end of my brush move on paper. I call it a 'study' because I think I can do it better, or differently, reflecting the different shades of blue/green light and detail of the reed brushes.