Hobbies and Crafts

We keep saying we should go and stay in Derbyshire Jane. we did have a couple of days there many years ago, around the Bakewell area but I would like to go again. Maybe that could be one for next year. Glad you had a lovely time anyway.

It was funny, when we were away of course, our birds didn't get fed, including the blackbird that feeds several times a day on mealy worms in a dish on the patio table. The day we got back we didn't see or hear a blackbird so assumed he had got fed up and gone elsewhere. The next day I shook the mealy worm packet and put a few in the dish. before I got indoors he was back and has been here every day since. The young sparrows have also found the dish so also come for mealy worms, they are so tiny. But the goldfinches have not returned nor the great and blue tits. The collard doves and pigeons haven't deserted us though!!!

Ann I can recommend the cottage we stayed in if you ever do think of going back to that area.
Pigeons :-S :-S Vera we have the same problem big time here. They seem to manage to poo on everything and everywhere. The Bird Bath is hosed out each time the garden is watered as it is always full of their poo.I always think they look so funny when they just sit in the water .I suppose in this heat it must be very cooling.But they need a lesson on toilet training :-S :-S Not so many birds on the feeder today.I filled it this morning and it is still quite full.
There is a slight breeze here now and its feeling quite nice outside .The house is so hot and stuffy though,I think it will be another uncomfortable nights sleep. :-S

Gosh it is quiet here. If you are like me here you will be sweltering .Its been a very uncomfortable day as it has been so humid. We are desperate for some rain now.Even with watering it doesnt seem to do too much.
We have a new little visitor on the Window Feeder. A young Lesser Spotted Woodpecker :-D. The Jay has been back again and frightened off little Woody :-S

Poor Thomas is really feeling this heat now. I wish I could take his fur coat off.He looks pretty miserable :-(. There seems no end yet to this heatwave . I just hope my fans don't pack up!!!

Yes it has been quiet on here, I guess we are all stupified by the heat.
I will remember that about the cottage Jane, always good to have a recommendation. Tomorrow we are off to Winchester for two days to meet up with our ex RN friends group (10 of us I think). Then friday OH and I go on down to Lee on solent until Sunday. I bet that is when we get some of the promised showers. :-D

Enjoy your days away Ann. A little shower would be a great relief at the moment .I would go and stand in it :-D We need a break from the heat now but it looks to continue and even hotter at the weekend when we go to London :-S

My neighbour 2 doors down was telling me the other day she saw a Muntjac and a Fox playing together in her garden !!!! How amazing was that to see.

It has cooled off a bit here now with a nice breeze. Thomas has woken up after sleeping all day .He too is finding this heat a bit much . But it hasn't stopped him hunting. There was a bunch of feathers on the back door mat this morning :-( Little horror :-S. I keep finding little feathers around the house which I think must have been stuck in his fur.

Thanks Jane, Thomas will be choosing to hunt at night in the cool.

What a lovely sight for your neighbour to see. We do see foxes but just walking through the close on the way to the golf club.

He has just brought back a Rat Ann !!! Luckily dead :-D.I have double bagged it and put it in the black bin.It was still warm :-S :-S Have shut him in now for the night (well until 3am) when he will be wanting out again!

Ugh!! Still a good job done Thomas.

Hope you are all coping with this heat. I think our little feathered friends might be struggling a bit as there hasn't been too much activity on the feeder.
Not much activity with me either LOL.I am hugging the fan and just watching tv. Can't even think about cooking dinner yet.

I feel guilty if I complain as it’s lovely to see the sun but I am finding the heat a bit of a trial. We are having a hectic week - visitors on Monday so I had to provide a proper meal, washing, ironing and cleaning Tuesday as it was the only day available to do anything. Yesterday we had a 3 hour coach journey to Nottingham, followed by a 3 hour river trip with a full roast dinner, and a three hour coach journey back. Today we had appointments in town this morning followed by a strawberry tea with a quiz in aid of a local charity and boy, was it hot! Tomorrow we have to go to Colchester and I really don’t want to be traipsing round a town in this heat. Then sometime I have to make a savoury and a sweet dish for a garden party we are attending on Sunday.

Just writing that lot has exhausted me. I hope you are all having a more relaxed week.

We were home for about half an hour at lunchtime and while we were here the jay flew into the garden. He sat on the fence right in front of us for a moment and then jumped on to the feeder with the fat balls. The second he did that two starlings appeared and chased him off. Every time he tried to go on the feeder they went for him till eventually they chased him out of the garden :-(

I hope he returns as he is so colourful and makes a change from sparrows and starlings.

Crikey Vera! What a lot you have on !!!!. You are going to be totally exhausted .
My day has been very relaxed excect for when we went out for lunch for my Birthday.
We got to the Pub to find out that they could do no food as the was an electric problem in the kitchen and then they had run out of white wine !! Shock Horror . Just enough for me to have a glass .OH had to have a Beer which he said was warm.
We were going to go on to somewhere else but I said to come home and we will just get a Chinese home delivery tonight. I just couldn't be doing with driving around in the car looking for somewhere else.

I love to see our Jay.although saying that I haven't seen it for a few days now.They are such big birds but easily scared off.They do have a vicious looking beak on them :-S There seem to be a lot of Red Kites about at the moment ,all being chased by Crows :-S
It's too HOT :-S :-S

Very happy birthday Jane. Shame about your birthday lunch but enjoy the rest of your day.

It’s my daughter’s birthday today as well and the weather is very different to the year she was born.. I had to bring her home from the hospital swaddled in blankets as it was so cold.

I didn’t get to Colchester today as I spent most of last night in the bathroom with an upset tum :-(. I’m OK now apart from feeling exhausted, but, having done nothing today, I have twice as much to do tomorrow.

Someone told me yesterday that the “experts” say you shouldn’t feed the birds with fat balls in the summer. Anyone else heard this?

Happy Birthday to your Daughter Vera.I was in a Mother and Baby home when I was born and being put up for adoption.That was the best thing that happened for me :-D
Sorry you have an upset Tum. I find this hot weather can play havoc with mine :
Haven't heard about not using fat balls in the summer. I just use the pellets mixed with Sunflower Hearts .
Hopefully you will be up and running again for thr Garden Party on Sunday. :-D

I decided to look at summer feeding for birds on the RSPB site and have done a c&p on some of the information there as follows:

Avoid using peanuts, fat and bread at this time, since these can be harmful if adult birds feed them to their nestlings. If you feel you must put out peanuts, only do so in suitable mesh feeders that will not allow sizeable pieces of peanuts to be taken, reducing the choking risk to chicks.

Home-made fat balls can go soft and rancid in warm summer weather, and should be avoided. Commercially produced fat bars are suitable for summer feeding but discard any remains after three weeks.

I feel happier now I know I am not killing off any of the bird. My fat balls are commercial ones and the starlings barely make them last 3 days let alone 3 weeks. My peanuts are in a mesh feeder and I only make fat cakes myself in the winter because I've seen how they soften up in summer. OH is inclined to throw out bread if we are near the end of a loaf and the pigeons and blackbirds seem to like that but perhaps I should stop him doing it till later in the year.

Gosh it's hot today. I am wilting fast. I've been in town all morning and at a supermarket for an hour this afternoon so I think a long cool drink is called for and a rest in front of a fan :-D

We had a couple of nice surprises yesterday :-)

First we had a thrush come in the garden. That doesn’t sound very special but we rarely see them here and they are on the RSPB endangered species list so I was pleased to see it.

Then just after dark last night I was in our ground floor bedroom about to pull the blinds when an outside security light came on. I looked out of the window expecting to see a cat but found I was face to face with a large hedgehog. It’s the first one I have seen since we moved here nearly five years ago. I am hoping he spent the night feasting on our slugs :-D

I hope your lovely big Hedgehog doesn't make the same kind of mess ours did last year all over out patio !!!,but does eat all the slugs you might have :-D. We had to hose down every morning Vera :-S
How nice to see the Thrush. I'm not sure we have any at all at the moment. Lots of the usual little birds and the great pooping Woodpidgeons :-S What a mess they make.

I didn’t think about Hedgehog mess :-(. In fact the pigeons make so much mess I don’t think I would notice a bit more - I am fed up with having to scrub the garden chairs and table every other day.

Today through an open door we could hear a strange noise in the garden. OH went to investigate and found that a blackbird had somehow got inside the fruit cage that goes right over my big pots of blueberries when they are nearly ripe. It was obviously frightened and as soon as OH lifted the top off the cage it flew right out, practically into his face. I was very glad OH was here to deal with it. We still haven’tworked out how it got inside :-S

Vera,we have had a trapped bird before under a net. As you say how on earth do they get in !!!. I hope your Blackbird hasn't had a good feed on your Blueberries :-D
It is all very quiet today bird wise.Maybe like me they are staying somewhere in the cool. It is sooo muggy here :-S
Last night or I should say this morning at 4 am I was woken by a Muntjac in next doors garden .The first 'bark ' frigthened the life out of me ,but then I realised what it was. I thought someone was being attacked !! I just hope that tonight it decides to go elsewhere at that time of the morning . I had only just settled back into bed after letting Thomas out at 3.40 .When I opened the back door to let him out I was hoping for a little bit of nice fresh air but it was very close even then.

We had rain yesterday afternoon and evening and it seems to have brought the birds back to the garden. Yesterday evening we had a very tiny robin looking around and the past couple of days we have had one Goldfinch return to the nyger seed. Today we have had great tit and blue tit and more than one blackbird, some of them look like this years. Yesterday I am 99% positive we had a thrush in the garden but I was looking from upstairs, by the time I got down it had gone.

We were pleased this morning to see a Comma butterfly on the Budleia, very pretty and good to see. Did see one last year and hoped they were still in the area. Seen several small tortoishells otherwise so far just cabbage whites.