Hobbies and Crafts

Tec, I am having a little giggle here at the picture of you crawling up the dog's ramp!!

We went to Westonburt Arboretum yesterday to see the wonderful autumn colours. They have a bird feeding station there but it is closed for two months. Apparently the birds all caught a disease that is spread at feeders and the RSPB advised them to shut the feeders until the end of November. Can't remember the disease name, it was a long one!!

Ann
Glos

Lizzie,
I know about the old dog/new tricks thing, but I have always thought that my faithful old dog would follow me over the edge of a cliff if so required. This may be so, but his devotion evidently doesn't go as far as following me up a dog ramp into the back of a car.
As for my neighbours, well my behaviour will only serve to further confirm their suspicions. Although, looking at my neighbours, I feel that a little light entertainment would not go amiss.

When leaving Porthmadog today, I noticed a flock of about twenty Canada Geese, flying low, and toward marshland inland from the coast.

Regards
Tec

Tec I think you need to remember the old adage "you can't teach an old dog new tricks". Never mind - but I expect the neighbours won't see you in the same light in future. The image did make me giggle.

We're hearing the owls in the evening too.

Oh Bless ,I had a ramp for my old Dodger to get in the back of the car.I used to heave him in ,and ended up with a trapped nerve in my neck which gave me a numb hand ,but with pins and needles.
Yes Owls are very vocal here now.

Hi Folks,

Jane...That is so sad about the parrot. The poor lady must be distraught, and I don't suppose the parrot was ecstatic either.
Surprising how much bullying goes on among the birds. Today I watched two buzzards being mobbed by a gang of jackdaws. The buzzards ventured down off the mountain, and were soaring over the village when a mob of about twenty jackdaws gathered to chase them back up the mountain.
Another example of bullying occurs with the collared doves in my garden. Two doves wait every morning for me to fill the feeders. Frequently, just after they settle to eat, a third dove flies in and chases them off, consequently they all fly away, and nobody gets anything to eat. Although, the regular pair do return later when bully boy has disappeared.
The owls are very vocal after dark now, and during the day the blackbirds have returned to join my regular visitors.
The oystercatches are increasing in number on the beach, and there have been several cormerants down there recently.

The ramp that I made for Yanto, to enable him to get into the car more easily, was a complete failure. He looked at it with derision, and refused to use it. I covered it with carpet to avoid slipping, and even crawled up it myself on my hands and knees to show him it was safe, but all to no avail. (The men in white coats are on the way)..................

Regards to all
Tec.

Our local paper last week had a bit about a lady who had a parrot,who she regularly let out of the cage in the garden to have a little fly.It was just sat on a bush and a Red Kite suddenly swooped down got the parrot and it was gone .

I was being silly - I forgot to look on the RSPB website for images and it was definitely a kestrel.

I was just about to go out in the garden and finish off what I was doing this morning - making sure all the frost tender things have protection - and I saw a bird of prey fly into the lilac bush on the patio. But of course it saw me immediately and flew straight off so I didn't see it for long enough to check what it looked like exactly. I think it was either a kestrel or a sparrowhawk. From what I saw and my books it looked more like a kestrel but I can't be sure.

There's a drake on the river that keeps causing bust ups when I feed the ducks. He gets jealous if another one gets to the food first and then chases the successful one away. In the process he totally misses the food I try to get to him, then spots another one getting it and starts on that one. He's obviously not a good british citizen or he'd take his turn like the rest of them.

Hiya:o)

Just back from Exeter, been there since Friday to celebrate my sisters 70th. Brilliant time was had by all:o)
The cottage was surrounded by tree's and fields, loads of wild life, badgers, foxes, pheasants with their broods, various other birds and of course a couple of squirrels, plus a deer:o)

Dizzi....So envious of your Ducks!

Yep autumn is here, very dewy in the morning and chilly both morning and evening.

We collected Madoc from the kennels (well Vic did), as soon he was in the garden his best mate next door was at his front door waiting to be let out and knock on our door.....so cute:o)) They also have an 8 week old lab pup that arrived this afternoon, called Rosco:o) l think we are going to have fun with him!!!!

jude:o)

That's it now, it's officially autumn - season of mists and mellow fruitfulness and all that. We've been waking up to misty mornings the past week and although our gardens have been protected there's the first frost of the year lying on the farmers land over the river. Now I can go and collect my last lot of sloes. I know you're supposed to wait till there's a frost and I shouldn't have picked any at all yet but I couldn't wait as the crop looked so good this year. I'll end up with 3 separate brews of gin to see if it makes any difference. Then I'll use my "scientific" results to inform me for future years. I should have enough expert tasters around Christmas time to get a consensus and make it an objective trial.

Now that the ducklings are grown the ducks are beginning to get cheeky again and have been all the way up to the patio to tap on the glass for food the past couple of days.

I've been seeing the geese flying over again in formation for the past few days. But now they go about an hour earlier in the morning and go south east instead of south west. Wonder what they're up to?

What we do for the birds. OH has made a sparrow house (bet they don't use it) and is outside in the cold trying to mount it on the fence behind a very prickly rose.

Hello Ann....ooo err thats unusual, not daft though was he:o))

jude x

Evening all:o)

l have been away to Sussex helping my cousin who's been poorly, got back yesterday pm.

Thanks for asking Jane:o)
l received your email and will get the next photo on the blog asap:o)

Vic says that the crow and rooks have disapeared, l noticed alot of sparrows this afternoon, plus the dunnocks, doves and some w/pigeons.
Strange how one day a species of bird if about then its gone for a while. We've been getting buzzards hovvering, l heard them about a week ago, four of them.
On the coach coming back yesterday l saw 2 or 3 buzzards, also something that looked bigger than a buzzard. On coach going l saw 3 buzzards on fences and a deer feeding in a field....the person behind me must have thought l was abit strange cause l got excited each time l spotted something:o))
l love the squirrels too, fascinating:o) but they do pinch loads of food, they often take the peanut feeder down, but we have wire holding it now which makes it harder for them. Brother in law has made a seperate feeding table for them at his house and they use it all the time.

Have read loads of posts back will finish reading them asap.

Take care
We're off again Fri:o))...lol
jude :o)

And where is Tec. I think Jude might be away.

Yesterday morning we watched a blackbird drinking from the water feature. Nothing unusual in that except we have a water feature that has a jet of water going from the figures on the top , being poured in a fountain jet into the bowl beneath and the blackbird was opening his beak under the jet so it went straight in.

Where is Jude? Is she on holiday?

I got quite excited yesterday, I saw a little goldcrest again for the first time since the winter snow. So it's good to know some survived. They're so small you wonder how they don't freeze to death in such cold weather.

We've had the swans come past again a couple of times this week. Saw them a few weeks ago and they had 6 cygnets but now there seem to be only 5. I hope it's a different family and that they haven't lost one. OH got into the river with them the other day as I saw one of them put its head under water and get an elastic band round its beak (the red ones the posties use - there's a bridge over the river by the local post office so I hope they didn't chuck it in). It dropped off easily enough thank goodness but I didn't want it to float off down the river and do real damage. Thank goodness they were all well behaved as the cygnets are quite big now, let alone the cob.

We had been to Broadwinsor before although not the craft centre. My OH's Gt grandfather and Gt Gt Grandfather were born in Broadwinsor.
We had no problems from pigeons or seagulls while in Lyme despite sitting at an outside table eating a crab sandwich.

I've just seen how the squirrel got to the bird food. Not via the baffle at all. But a flying leap from a nearby shrub - very acrobatic and quite impressive actually. Thought we had the feeder far enough away, but I've had to move it further.

We went to the Craft Centre Ann,in thick fog lol.They had some lovely things there.I bought a few things for Xmas presents.We had been to Lyme Regis earlier in the day .Jude put a pic of mine on her blog of the pidgeons on the table at Lyme.They knocked cups off the table which smashed on the ground.They were a real nuisance.