Graceful Wings

Surfing through Facebook yesterday, I saw a link to one of the most stunning gliding videos I have ever seen. It reminded me of why I enjoyed flying these elegant engineless aircraft in the 1990's, and the wonderful Norwegian mountain scenery in the film took me back to some amazing autumns when I soared over the magnificent Cairngorms with other pilots from my gliding club in Buckinghamshire. I had never been to Scotland before then, even though some of my ancestors lived on the east coast there until the late 19th/early 20th century. What an introduction to it I had! We lodged in a huge Norwegian log cabin called Birkelunn, hidden away deep in the forests on the Glentanar Estate near Aboyne, and rose before dawn to prepare the gliders for the day of flying ahead. The weather conditions in the mountains enable a special type of gliding called wave soaring, and the highest altitude I reached in a glider with my instructor was 18,000 ft. You need to breathe with an oxygen mask from about 7,000 ft, and it's very very cold up there - but it's worth it for the fabulous views of the Dee Valley, the mountains and far beyond. To top it all, where there's mountain wave there are also the most spectacular cloud formations called lenticulars. On leaving our log cabin the first year I stayed there, I wrote in the visitors' book "I have fallen in love with this magical place".

The photo I've chosen for today is of the Green Lacewing which was resting on a window frame this morning. It was attracted by my lamp last night and flew in through the open window. Although it has such pretty, graceful and lacy wings, it's actually not a very strong flyer, but its larvae are very welcome in any garden because they feed voraciously on aphids. You can even buy Lacewings by mail order as a natural pest control.

I love things with wings!