Chance

My apologies for another brewery picture so soon after the last one. This particular light only happens on a few days each spring and autumn, and today I'm able to capture it from the superior vantage point of our neighbours' garden, because I'm on chicken duty. The sky is quite cloudy and, in fact, we did not see the sun at all until after 11.30am, except for this ten minute slot at dawn, when the sun could shine from a very acute angle, just above the horizon but underneath the cloud layer. This creates this soft orange light, from just the right direction to generate this glow on the stone on the north-east and south-east elevations of the brewery tower, to the backdrop of a blue-grey sky

This is well before the visitor centre or cafe have opened, or the visitors have arrived for today's tours, or indeed before most of the staff have arrived (no pre-dawn brew today, though there is on some days). It feels like special show just for us - or just for me, in this case, as MrsM was still catching up on Covid-robbed sleep. Even the chickens were tarrying indoors - not hungry enough to come down for breakfast

So it was just me and the jackdaws arrayed across the roof apex - not quite as paired off two-by-two as they sometimes are, but many of them nevertheless leaving no doubt who is their mate. One pair have taken to the top of the birch tree to get a better view of the spectacle. The brewery have permission to take down that birch as part of a road-widening project - understandable, as very large articulated vehicles have to negotiate a route designed for horse-drawn dreys at that point, but I will miss the tree. Perhaps this is also a last chance to capture its shadow on the glowing wall