Hobbies and Crafts

Me again:o)

Forgot to say our hopalong w/pigeon is back too, not seen him for some months, that was a lovely surprise, he's big and fat too :o)

Jane .... our squirrel pops in everynow and then, teases the dog and runs off again!! lol

jude:o)

Hello everyone. Not been on over the past week because my son fell off his scooter - he's OK but the bike still needs fixing - I needed to help him sort that out and help him get to and from work too. As we're rural he sometimes finishes after buses stop running. Also we went away for the weekend to see our daughter in Sheffield. We had a lovely walk in the Peaks in the rain, so of course didn't see much in the way of birds and wildlife as they'd all have been taking shelter.

Nevertheless, she lives in the city, but I was woken about 6am by the sound of owls which was lovely. On autumnwatch last week they were saying they wanted people to give them details of any tawny owls you hear so I'm going to look on the website to remind myself how to go about that.

Glad to hear the finches are returning to your area Jude. We don't seem to have any starlings here and they used to be so common. My aunt used to reckon there were so many of them that none of the other birds got a look in when you fed them, but I always thought they are quite colourful. Did you see the starling 2 weeks ago on autumnwatch. He was lovely and really stole the show. This week it was the tawny owl.

We have had the Green finches back feeding, also four starlings this morning so they are starting to return, also had the usual sparrows, a Dunnock, a Robin and a Blackbird so gradually they are returning.
Dizzie, sorry to hear about your son and pleased to hear he was OK.

Not a lot happening bird wise at the moment although a couple of Magpies seem to be back!!!!!!!!!.

Hello people .
I heard and saw a fantastic sight today . It was rather foggy here in Norfolk this morning and I suddenly heard the honking of many voices , getting closer . I rushed outside and peered skywards ( into the foggy sky ) and saw several skeins of Geese fly over...........all honking like mad things a each other .
A few hours later I was out down or high street , the fog had lifted by then and I again heard the honking ..........one large V shape whooshed overhead , going from the direction of the sea ,heading inland.
It was a joy to witness : ))

Next door has a small lake ,and for several years we used to have Canada Geese fly over the garden in the morning to land there,and late afternoon off they would go again.I don't know why they stopped coming.

Hi Amanda, it is quite impressive when they go over in formation isn't it. Makes me think, we haven't seen the geese flying round here for a couple of weeks now. They seemed to go over southwards in the morning and north at night. They obviously had a couple of regular visits to make each day.

I wish I had taken my camera with me this morning when I was out with the dog.Sitting on a garden fence between 2 houses were 2 Peacocks.Really quite close to the road.I think they must have come from Wicksteed Park.They looked quite at home lol

Makes a change from the usual sparrows and starlings I suppose.

My contribution..........

We feed the birds and I have never known so many sparrers come to a feeding post - they queue up like planes over Heathrow! Mind you, the Sparrowhawk has paid a visit, but they all have to live.

ps I wish that shops wouldn't sell bird food encased in mesh, as the little birds like tits can get their feet entangled in it.

Alice

Quite a commotion this morning. The weather is awful, heavy rain and high winds and I was expecting the birds to be tucked up in their roosts, but I was woken earlier on by a lot of birdy noise. It turned out to be a lot of crows (a murder of same?), loads of magpies, flying around in circles - I'd thought they were having a bit of a to do about territory or something. But there were loads of ducks quacking and moorhens (which we don't see very often on the garden - they're more shy), and even a pheasant on the garden bothering about. I just discovered why a few minutes ago. I saw a tawny owl fly along the river in a momentary lull in the tempest just over hedgerow height, but a good deal lower than the height of the trees. We often hear them late in the evening and early in the morning, but I have never seen one for myself except when you go to see birds of prey displays. I think this one has been taking lessons from the heron who flies along quite regularly. Maybe it's been having a spot of difficulty finding brekkie this morning.

The lawn is now a complete carpet of willow leaves. Oh well, that'll give OH something to do for a bit.

Morning.....back from me travels:o)

What orrible weather!!!!

l contacted RSPB site about the finches and a number of people have replied including rspb staff to say how good it is to see chaffinches in my garden, there is a horribe desease killing all finches and to keep an eye on ours for any signs, l have a link (somewhere) to check on.

We too have loads of sparrers!! and they line up on the fence.
l took a photo of c/doves all lined up on the little wall, as l took it they flew off and l have c/dove in flight, bit blurred but quite an effective photo, BUT l can't work out how to transfer it from mobile to pc, l have done so before but it won't happen this time....grrr will try again later.

Has anyone seen the photo on blog of the Cat drinking from the fountain that Jane sent me.

Jane....camera in your pocket at all times please:o)))

Off to shower:o)

jude

Dizzie....just read your post, wow that must have been a sight:o))

Our lawn is covered with all the dead bits from 100ft fir trees and it all entangled in the flowers etc....grrr

l see my name has altered, must alter it back again, don't like that, l was tweeking my details this morning to check on when to update.

jude

Yes it was a bit special Jude. Don't suppose that'll happen again for a while though. Maybe it was because it was so dull yesterday - so much nicer today, we spent some time out in the garden today. I must look on the Autumnwatch site. I think it was last week they were asking people to log when you hear Tawnies.

The past few days the moorhens and coots are coming up on the garden more regularly. The rest of the year they seem to keep to the river and the opposite bank which is on farmland.

Haven't been on here much this week, but a few days ago there were two wrens in the front hedge. I thought they are a bit territorial like robins, and we don't often get to see one let alone two at the same time. There was a bit of flittering around going on which was what caught my attention to them while I was in the kitchen.

Yesterday I had 3 pheasants in the garden, a male and two females. I've only ever seen one male here occasionally before. One of the females came up to the patio windows and tapped on it like the ducks do, but I don't think it was for me to give them food as they are much more nervous and usually fly off immediately they see movement. The strange thing was one of my cats was on the inside stalking towards the window at the time which was what caught my attention in the first place. Didn't get a photo though because I only had my phone handy and the females are so camouglaged against the paving slabs and gravel. I managed to fetch my camera and see it would be better using that, but they all flew off before I could get a good enough shot. Maybe another day.

OH wants a good pair of small binoculars for Christmas - pocket size if possible. Anyone know any good models? He says it would be good to be able to always carry them and he's not likely to want to have bigger ones with him all the time. We do have a bigger pair that was his Dad's but they are a bit heavy to keep round your neck when we go out walking. We did have another pair that was my Dad's but they got stolen from OH's suitcase when it went through customs in Kenya on a business trip years ago - he was there long enough to have a couple of days off and he went on a short safari trip. He didn't have room at the time to keep them in his hand luggage. You live and learn.

I go to work from Wednesday lunchtime until the end of the week, and today just as I was about to finish getting ready to go out I looked out of the window and it was like Autumnwatch live in our garden. I really didn't want to go.

There was a cock pheasant at the ground table, and a couple of ducks and moorhens on the lawn with a squirrel. There was a magpie on top of the weeping willow. Then on the peanut feeder there was a greater spotted woodpecker along with a variety of tits coming to the fat ball and the seed feeder and on the ground underneath some dunnocks and a couple of chaffinches. I saw a pair of blackbirds too - I think that's it, but it was just so active and colourful. It really was exactly what we moved out here for.

To cap it all OH works from home on Wednesdays and he said just after I left there was a heron standing in the river. It made me think of a disney scene or Animals of Farthing Wood. I really couldn't believe how much I was seeing at once - I'm sure I missed something too as there was so much going on.

Jude maybe I should let RSPB know we have a few chaffinches round here too - I hadn't heard about the disease until you said.

How wonderful Dizzie, what a lovely place you live in.
We have had four goldfinches on the nyger seed today so far, a Greefinch on the black seed, a robin gleaning up under the fat ball feeder, sparrows and dunnock. Yesterday we had a huge flock of starlings on the fat ball feeders and suet feeder and a collard dove trying to get onto the nyger seed feeder to eat the seeds that have fallen into the saucer.

Animals of Farthing Wood I had forgotten about that Lizzie.I think it was my daughter who loved to watch that.It think it used to make me cry sometimes lol
Not much going on in the garden at the moment.I haven't seen the woodpecker for a while.The Magpies are still around being a pain.

Hi there:o)

Its been raining for 2 whole days now:o(( Yesterday we drove up to Symonds Yat. we have visitors (well we did,they left about an hr ago), she loves Symonds Yat and he loves the Kymins, sadly we did'nt have time to get up to Kymins. Both places are usually very busy with wildlife, we saw a buzzard in a field being harrassed by a crow, but thatwas about it....oh yes a robin and a squirrel. We sat in the cabin coffe shop and had mug of coffee and coffee/walnut cake....loverly:o)
Our garden still has loads of sparrows, 4 or 5 starlings now, couple of robins, not seen the dunnock for a while. Loads of c/doves and w/pigeons
and we still have the chaffinches.....:o))
Yes DizzieLizzie it might be good idea to let RSPB know

C yeh:o)

jude xc

What is/are the Kymins Jude? If you remember back a few weeks we visited the Forest of Dean and Symond's Yat for OH's family tree. Might be good to know of somewhere else to include as part of another future visit.

Goldfinches, and finches generally, are so attractive Ann - I wish we got those in the garden too, but mustn't be greedy I suppose. In a garden we had years ago we used to get Bullfinches as we had quite a lot of brambles at the end of the garden which they seemed to like particularly.

I used to have a secret tear at Animals of Farthing Wood too Jane. Used to watch it with the kids when they were little. They both loved it. We had a wonderful computer game for them which I used to have a go on too because it was so pretty and it meant I could help them get to the next stage of the puzzle. It was very educational and had lots of little extras which actually taught me to recognise some bird calls etc. The kids had all the children's novels and after they'd read them I read them too. They still have them on their shelves to pass on when the time comes.

Now that we've finally managed to stop the squirrels emptying out the hanging feeders, they've gone and got stroppy about it and decided to have a chew at the wooden frame of the ground feeder just to show us who's boss.

I'm still finding out about our area and having dropped my son off to work today, on the way back I took a side turning along one of the country lanes just to see where it went. I do that sometimes so I know what's around and on the hunt for alternative walking areas. It was a beautiful little lane (single track with grass down the middle - so not used much) and at the side of the road, on a grass verge at the front of a lovely old farmhouse, on the edge of the Wessex downs, there was a muscovy duck just sitting in the rain. They are strange looking things.

Jude I reported my tawny from the other day - I think that was British Ornithological Trust, and I've reported the chaffinches I saw to RSPB too.