Hobbies and Crafts

I was up earlier than usual this morning. Just a blackbird and a couple of pigeons in the garden but a large group of gulls suddenly appeared from nowhere. They spent a good hour just flying round in circles over our little garden and the one next door so quite a small area. Then they disappeared just as suddenly as they had come.

I've no idea where they came from or what attracted them. At our old house they would follow the ploughs when the farmers were working the fields but we don't have farmland that close here nor are we near the coast.

I stood at an upstairs window for some while watching them.

Very grey day here today and cold with it. I have to go to the hospital this afternoon just a check up on a rodent ulcer that was removed from my leg almost 2 years ago. I think they forgot to call me back :-D I forgot all about it with all the worry about our son in law last year. It looks ok anyway so fingers crossed.

I too have eyes that water at the drop of a hat, very annoying but not painful. Mine water if it is cold, windy, raining, if there is a strong perfume, smell of cooking.
Jane why do they call it dry eye if it waters? :-S :-S

No birds at all in the garden at the moment, none even flying over. Guess theya re hiding from the cold.

daughter is coping ok thanks Kandj, a bit lonely sometimes of course but trying to keep herself occupied. She likes walking so has been out with her camera on sunny days. Luke is...... Luke, still grinning, still not walking on his own. His Mum says, while videoing him on her phone, 'Walk to Mummy Luke'. Luke says while standing perfectly well on his own, 'No'. and sits down laughing. Sadly daughter lives 4 - 5 hours away from Luke so also relies on photos and videos to keep in touch.

I'm not sure Ann but I think it is because of blocked ducts ( or something) that the tears run down your face instead of lubricating the eyeball.So the eye ball becomes dry.I could be talking a load of tosh but I think that is the gist of it :-D
I hope your Check up went OK today and that all is good.

No heating here ..The system has gone PHUTT :-S :-S....Brit Gas man spent 2 hours here this afternoon .He could find no fault and managed to get it going .But it failed again 2 hours after he left.....He will be back tomorrow afternoon........Thank heavens for a Woodburner in the lounge.The rest of the house is like an icebox :-S :-S

Oh Jane that has happened twice to us previous winters, it is so miserable when we are used to warm houses. Wrap up warm, hope it can be fixed without too much expense.

Yes all well at the hospital, doesn't need to see me again, he just wanted to check the scar of the minor op. :-)

Thats good news then Ann :-D
Well the heating saga continues.We have been freezing all day.The engineer came again at 3.30 changed some wiring and put a new clock in .It then worked :-D.He left about 4.45 and as soon as he went ...it went off again :-S :-S
So someone will be back again tomorrow...No expense Ann (thankfully ) as we have cover for breakdowns and parts.Something weird is going on.

I haven't been watching the birds at all today ,just topping up the feeder.
Bought a new car this morning :-D so that was this morning taken up and then the heating problem all afternoon.
Must check the Rat Boxes tomorrow !!!

ooh such excitement, we had five goldfinches in the garden this morning, quite late about 10.15. And a load of starlings. OH just filling up the bird feeders. :-) :-)

Lucky you Ann :-D.I haven't seen a Goldfinch in a while now.
Our Moorhens now seem to suddenly appear as soon as I go out to fill the Window feeder.I also am sprinkling a little seed along the bottom of the Yew hedge.I am thinking more and more now that they might actually be living in the hedge :-D

Still no heating :-S.British Ga* man seems to think it might be a problem with a faulty electric wire under the floorboards just outside our bedroom.A floorboard is loose and he thinks that when someone walks on it it might be touching a loose or split wire !!!!! so is cutting out.I am now waiting for Homeserve to arrive to look at the electrics.So it will be carpet up next..I just hope that they will find a problem and fix it so we can get the heating back on.

It couldn't happen at a worst time could it Jane? I do hope they can find the fault and fix it.

Maybe in a month or so there will be baby moorhens then. Aaaw. :-) <3

I put some bread soaked in bacon fat out a while ago and that has been very popular, there was a robin and a blackbird, goodness knows how many starlings and a wren and blue and great tits in the tree. that was about an hour ago so late lunch!!! :-D

Little babies would be so lovely to have Ann. :-D.I don't quite understand though why they are in our garden all the time when next door actually has a 'little lake' !!!They are water birds after all :-D.I wish we still had our huge fish pond .They would have loved that :-D :-D
Someone should be here within the hour now to have a look under our floorboards. :-S
Nothing is ever straightforward in this house.

:-) :-) :-) :-) :-) Jane.

Oh dear Jane, that doesn't sound good. You must be really cheesed off with different gas men and still no heating on. Let's hope that the boiler is up and running very soon.

.A good visit for you at the hospital then Ann. Nice to have good news to share after your recent family bereavement. Shame that little Luke isnt nearer to help amuse your daughter and help her to smile again. He is the most mischievous looking little boy. He obviously has a mind of his own and learnt to say NO at an early age ha ha

A pretty decent day here in Yorkshire, dry and milder too. I am happy to see crocus and daff bulbs in borders as reward for my efforts in Autumn. Roll on Springtime.

Lots of gulls and even more starlings eating everything in sight. We have a pair of doves in the back garden which is lovely to see. I wonder if they are the same ones as last year? They are a very welcome sight along with the thrushes and blackbirds.
Much less aggressive and more interesting birds in the back garden than the front.

Poor you Jane. I hate being cold. I hope the heating people can get you sorted out soon.

I'm glad all went well at the hospital for you Ann.

Today has been grey and damp here, though I think it has been fractionally warmer. The only birds I have seen today have been a couple of collared doves. One was sitting right in the water bowl on the feeder - it looked a bit chilly to me :-D

I keep wondering where all the birds are. We used to get so many in our old house but hardly see any here. There was a large ginger cat that I have not seen before walking along the top of our fence earlier. Goodness knows where he has come from but I think the birds have probably been keeping out of his way today.

Our problem is finally sorted.It was a wire under the floorboards just outside our bedroom.It was exposed and was touching another ..We could have gone up in flames !!!!!! :-0 :-0.So now my OH will have to replace a couple of floor boards tomorrow.There is a big hole for us to get over at the moment.
It is such a relief now to know things are back to normal and we have heating and it's SAFE :-D

What a lovely day it has been .Wall to wall sunshine all day.The Robins have been having a great time in the Bird Bath.Water going everywhere lol.The other birds have been chasing each other all around the lawn.Spring is in the air I think .Moorhens popping in and out of the hedge from various levels !They do look so funny jumping out from halfway up with their great big feet :-D
Two Red Kites have been overhead just now .But very very high up.
It must be teatime now as the Window Feeder is very busy :-D

Thank goodness Jane, so pleased that you are warm again. But how did the wire get exposed I wonder? Good job the gas man was on the ball and recognised what the problem could be. So lucky it wasn't worse. :-) :-)

I think the birds must have been nipping in for food while I was busy making cards. I didn't see them but the niger seed has gone down. Yesterday we had five goldfinches on the feeder. I did see two male blackbirds feeding next to each other on the lawn where I had thrown some bread and mealy worms.

Ann it seemed to be a wire that was just under a loose board and so over the years overtime each time someone walked over it ,it got more compressed then split so exposed .That the gist of it (not being a pro on these things lol)

Now not being a pro on birds either.......but I think I have heard a Nightingale again :-D
I have managed to get the sound of it on my phone but the background traffic noise is quite loud which is very annoying .I have had a google for the Nightingale song (like I did last year) and it certainly sounds similar :-D

Ooh how lovely Jane I have never heard one.

Ann I hope it is the Nightingale.I will keep my eyes and ears open :-D
This morning my OH called upstairs to me to say to have a look out the bedroom window.The 4 Moorhen were all stood stock still staring at the big hedge.They were obviously a bit disturbed..It turned out to be a Weasel or Stoat that kept dashing in and out.I just hope that the birds haven't any eggs somewhere .There was also a Magpie mooching around there too.Which does make me wonder :-S :-S
I will have to see if I can find out about how Moorhens nest and when they are likely to have eggs.I just know they are waterbirds and that is the extent of my knowledge really.

I think we might have finally seen the end of the Ra** (for now) as bait has remained now for the last few days :-D..I live in hope :-D

Birdwatching is a delight and never more so that when birds are nesting. This photo journal by wildlife photographer AnnMackieMiller documents one moorhen's nest along the Leeds to Liverpool canal.
Moorhens are great climbers so it was no surprise to find them nesting in a tree - they like to keep the nest hidden away from predators like mink and, in the water, pike. What was more surprising was the demonstration of ingenuity in how they pulled down a branch to get a start up the tree to the nest.
How to spot a moorhen's nest

adult moorhen with reeds
adult moorhen carrying nesting material
Moorhens nests can be hard to spot, especially once trees and shrubs take on new growth as Spring advances. Mostly you spot them by watching for both adults taking nesting materials into the nest.
Both adult moorhens are responsible for nest-building and they are very keen and very meticulous in their duty. The rule they seem to live by is 'never go back to the nest empty-beaked'. This gives the birder the ideal opportunity to see where the nest is hidden. Before eggs are laid you will see both adults out of the nest and carrying nesting material back.
Once eggs have been laid, the nest it is never left unattended. The adults take shifts in going off to feed and to forage for likely nesting material and then do a shift change - one off, one on. When the chicks hatch out, you will see the adults taking food back to the nest. It is often handed over to the sitting moorhen to pass onto the chicks but the carrier will feed the young ones too. .. and still the nest building continues.

Taken from the web

http://watching-bingley-birds.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/nesting-moorhens.html

Thanks for that Ann
It is fascinating.I typed out some details of my Moorhens and asked a couple of questions and then when I went to submit ,I realised I don't have a google account :-S
and have no idea how to do one lol
But from reading all that it does seem very likely that the Moorhen are living in our hedge :-D