worth a thousand words?

I've never claimed to be good at taking photos, far from it, I'll admit to knowing that I'm actually rather bad. But that doesn't stop me from taking snaps of things that interest me, especially if they have a relevance to my writing. That relevance may not be obvious to the casual observer (note below the shrouded statues and the 'Beware of the Hound' pictures) but they do all feed my imagination, spark ideas, and therefore count as relevant, even research to me.

This photo is a good case in point. A building of rooks in a tree. A building being a collective noun for rooks*. It was a windy day so the tree was shaking but I'm sure I contributed to the general blurryness by adding a hefty dose of camera shake to proceedings. I'm also sure that almost everyone else would have deleted this picture and tried again but to my untrained, and unartistic, eye there is an element of menace that I like, it says something to me about how the people in my stories, people who live in fear of the choke, view birds, and so this picture makes the cut. Sorry if it offends you professionals but there are plenty more where this came from.

* Other collective nouns for a gathering of rooks are a parliament and a clamouring. I may post rubbish photos but I gift you quality bird facts.

The photograph is the author's own (as if anyone else would want to claim it.)