Characters from nature

Watching the unbelievably beautiful Earthflight on BBC the other night, I was reminded of a thought I had during Frozen Planet. On that programme, I laughed out loud to watch a thieving penguin craftily stealing stones from his neighbours – then defending his stolen hoard with all his strength as his puzzled victims eyed their diminished fortifications. On Earthflight, I was watching vultures trying to get access to a wildebeest carcass in the face of defence from a lion, storks and a hyena. Hilariously, the vulture decided to tiptoe round the back in the futile hope it wouldn't be spotted. If you haven't seen a vulture tiptoeing, I suggest you catch it now, on iplayer. David Tennant, who was narrating, commented that 'vultures never stay still' because they are always dodging out of the way of attacks.

Now, in both these cases, it didn't take much to extrapolate from animal to human behaviour. In the case of the vultures, I was reminded of the classic description of the shadowy underworld figure, eking out a living by "duckin' and divin', dodgin' and weavin' " – just like the vulture.

And why are scavengers generally so ugly? They seem to be almost caricatures of themselves – gawky, rough-looking, dirty, rough-furred or patchily feathered.

By contrast, watching the flamingoes dancing was the most extraordinarily beautiful sight. Like pink-tutu-ed ballerinas they moved in stately and graceful synchronicity, legs, necks, heads mirroring that of their neighbours. And seeing how gannets worked as a team with dolphins to catch sardines was truly awesome, with lessons to be learned about the common good (though not for the sardines, obviously).

I think I can justify glueing myself to these absorbing programmes. As well as being stunningly beautiful, revealing the intricacy and glory of our precious planet, they seem to offer boundless possibilities for the creation of characters for my novels!

Finally, in a footnote to Cally's blog last week, can I make the observation that one huge plus to e-books is that we can again get access to novels from our favourite authors that have been long out of print. Hats off to my friends and mentors Eileen Ramsay and Anita Burgh for taking the plunge and starting to upload their back lists!