A Northern Eye 7 - Thomond on Thursday with his choice of Guardian pictures from England's better half

A trainee caring for a racing pigeon at the Keppel Unit which houses 48 of the most traumatised and violent children in the UK within Wetherby young offenders' institution in Yorkshire
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Part of a flock of 150 brightly-coloured pigeons which were placed - or did they alight? - on rooftops as part of the Liverpool Biennial 2012 contemporary arts festival
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Rob McCracken, performance director of the GB boxing team putting his squad through a training session at the English Institute opt Sport in SHeffield prior to the London 2012 Olympic Games
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Kris Hopkins, former Conservative leader of Bradford council and now MP for the outriding Keighley constituency which embraces the crammed streets of Keighley and the wide open spaces of Haworth and Ilkley Moor
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Alright, it does sometimes rain in Manchester, as this nimble student found out
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Jessica Ennis celebrates winning the Yorkshire county championships shot putt final, as part of her characteristically low key preparations for the London Olympics where she won gold in the women's heptathlon
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

At the eye of a tax avoidance storm - a Starbuck's coffee bar in Manchester
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Salma Yaqoob who resigned as leader of Respect at the same time as the party's sole MP George Galloway, who won the Bradford West byelection in April, caused controversy with remarks about the Swedish police investigation into Julian Assange of Wikileaks
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Worshippers processing through the streets of York to the Minster on Palm Sunday, recreating the journey of Jesus into Jerusalem
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

The colliery lamp room at Beamish museum in county Durham - memories of the north's great past
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Puffins on the beetling cliffs of England's biggest seabird colony at Bempton on the Yorkshire coast between Bridlington and Filey
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

Gannets fly above the MV Yorkshire Belle, hidden by sea mist as she takes trippers from Bridlington to the seabird colonies on Bempton Cliffs
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian

The landlord's dogs - and saws - at the Mardale Inn in Bampton on the eastern fringes of the Lake District Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian/guardian.co.uk

Curiously brick-like patterns on the roof of a tunnel in the UK's largest salt mine at Winsford in Cheshire, left after a continuous-mining machine like a vast dinosaur lizard has ground its way through. Most of the grit currently in use on the roads comes from here
Photograph: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian