Hobbies and Crafts

My afternoon visitors have been two rather tubby pigeons and two collared doves BUT I glanced out of the window just now and there was a blue tit on the hanging suet cake. I am now feeling very smug - I really thought it would be several weeks before most birds discovered us. I hope he remembers the way back and brings his mates next time.

I think the blue sky has just about gone now.Just a couple of tiny patches left.I have just been watching the Red Kite overhead.It was being blown all over the place !!
Busy on the Feeder now.It must be teatime :-D.Stocking up for the night.Their little feathers are almost standing on end as they hang on the the edge of the rubber strip. :-D

Jane that is so typical, although no doubt our council tax would go up if they filled all the sanbags Lol. It is the same borough council there as ours and normally theya re very good. Maybe it was a matter of time. Have they managed to get to the depot to fill them. I did note that in Somerset they were filling the bags themselves, Still once they have them I think they keep them so will have them for future emergencies. Presuamably they expect everyone to have a car.

This morning has been brilliant sun and strong but warmish winds with one very shoprt shower. Hopefully the sun and wind will dry a bit of the surface water. However rain is expected later.

I quite enjoy watching the starlings I always think they are like little old men as theyw alk around the lawn. I dislike magpies though and try and discourage them. We have quite a few of both here. I love to watch the murmuration of starlings though.

Glad the blackbird and robin are still visiting Vera and also your young blackbird Kandj.

Hope your blue sky lasts longer than ours. I went out but came back as I was getting soaked. At the moment it's blowing a gale and the rain is hammering the windows. The hanging feeders are swinging around like mad and might well end up down the road somewhere.

Jane, if your niece manages to get to a central point to fill her sandbags how is she meant to carry them home? On her head? We've been so lucky here considering we have a river round the town. The worst we have encountered so far is some flooding at the end of our road which hid the horrendous potholes that have appeared. But the water authority has been in and pumped out and cleared the drains so it's much better now.

Stay safe everyone.

Morning Everyone.

Starlings are one bird we never have in our garden.Can't say they are one of my favourites,and as for magpies ,touch wood there don't seem to be too many around at the moment but last year we has so many.I think a lot were young ones and they would all 'meet ' in a group down the garden under our massive Bay tree..There was one Magpie that used to see the Squirrel on the Peanut Ball and it would just stand to one side until the Squirrel had finished and it would then hurry and pick up any dropped bits of nuts.Sometimes the Squirrel would run back and chase the bird all around the garden .It was so funny to watch :-D

The sandbags that were handed out for my Niece and her neighbours were EMPTY
ones !!!!.There are expected to go to some depot somewhere to fill them.
It makes me wonder if the council thought they had better just show they were doing 'something' after all the furore just down the RD in Somerset.!!!!!!

The wind is blowing here and so far lovely blue sky :-D.Not sure how long it will last.

Quick update before I go out. Have seen the blackbird and robin once each this morning but a new visitor today is a magpie. He looked very comical balancing on the edge of the mesh feeder tray.

Now I feel torn two ways, like you with the starlings kandj. I can't pick and choose which birds I feed but I don't really want to encourage magpies because they are such pests when there are eggs and young birds around.

I have also found that, if I stand at an angle to my kitchen sink, I can see straight through the kitchen and conservatory windows out to the feeder. So at least I can keep an eye on it while having my first cuppa of the day :-)

Breezy and sunny here this morning but more wind and rain to come tonight. Hope your niece is still OK, Jane.

:-D Kandj I have to say that starlings love those suet bits so just hope the message hasn't gone out to his 'gang' you will have to stand guard at the window and shoo them away.

Let us know when daughter has landed again Lesley. :-)

I have just had a STARLING on the window feeder.......oh no!!!

The bottom of the feeder was visible this morning which was strange as I did fill it with berry suet pellets when it got dark as I am able to do this from inside. Do birds eat at night in the dark? I had thought that this was our blackbird. There are 2 pellets on the windowsill where the bird had dropped them, was it the blackbird or a starling??

We have LOTS of very greedy aggressive starlings here. The usual swarm have already cleared the ground tray and I will put them more food and they will come back again about 3-30pm.... obviously creatures of habit BUT, I won't be happy for the starling to return to the window feeder and bring Uncle Tom Cobley and ALL

"Be careful what you wish for, it just might come true!" I wished for birds but didn't want STARLINGS.

Oh Lesley, just opened your link. It looks an amazing itinerary , she is sure to have a brilliant time.. All very exciting........ the youngsters are much more adventurous than my generation. Good luck to them. A wonderful experience to remember always.

Watching the flooding on TV and it is just so awful with no end in sight. Unbelievable!
How devastating to have such chaos and misery for people to cope in their daily lives for months now....... just so sad.

Our blackbird hasn't deserted us Vera. He has been flying back and feeding a couple of times today. He is a greedy bird and I've no idea how he managed to peck and pick up the suet pellets as his mouth must be very full when he flies off.
He has left a big space in the bottom of the feeder tray, so it will need to be filled up.

Daughters flight has just left Bahrain, I hope she was on it:-D

Tomorrow I hope to back to watching birds rather than airplanes:-D

Lesley x

ooh Lesley ,that looks a great trip.She will have a whale of a time :-D :-D

Glad she is well on the way Lesley. Wonderful how the young can go off and do these things isn't it? :-)

Middle daughter has landed safely in Bahrain:-D and is eating a McDonald's:-S she now has to wait until 10pm for the onward flight to Bangkok.

Jane our daughter has gone with Real Gap if you look here you will see she gets to do a bit of everything.
http://www.realgap.co.uk/thailand-experience#itinerary

I feel so sorry for all the people who's homes are being flooded:-( I cope with most things but being flooded every time we have extreme weather, not sure how/if I could cope with that.

Luckily we live on a slight hill so although our road is prone to flood the water is always going away from the house:-) it's not unusual for our back lawn to flood in places but that's okay because then we often get ducks and moorhens on the flooded parts:-D :-D :-D

Lesley x

Ann,they live in a house with a very narrow windy staircase so they will limited as to size of furniture as to what will go up !!.Hopefully any kennels will have spare room for 2 very large dogs lol.They could be booked out now :-S.What a worry for them all.

The wind has died right down here and there is hardly a breath.Calm before a storm ??.I see Suffolk is bad again.
Lesley are you ok where you are?.It is just never ending isn't it. :-S

I would imagine they have anticipated this and have put most moveable things upstairs, having been there before. Maybe the dogs would have to go into kennels.

Ann she must be feeling so sick now with worry of it all happening again.I can imagine it will be all go now to move things to higher levels now just in case the worst happens.At least her Children can always go and stay with my Sister and OH if needed.Then it will be the animals to worry about.There is no way my Sister could have the dogs as she already has 3 large ones.The cats can go upstairs with litter trays and George the Tortoise will have to up stairs too.
Fingers and everything else crossed for them all this weekend .

We are expecting very bad weather over the weekend. But at least they have given them sand bags. Fingers crossed for them.

Just seen on my Nieces FB that the Council have just been around with Sandbags :-S :-S :-S.That ain't a good sign is it :-(

Well, so far it has been sun sun sun :-D.Washing on line and OH right down the bottom of the garden having a bonfire.Good job he is a long way from the washing line otherwise the air would be 'blue'.I haven't spent time yet today seeing which birds are about ,but there is a lot of birdsong going on.The Blackbirds and Robins seem to be trying to out do each other lol

Lesley,has your daughter gone travelling around Thailand .My son spent a few months living with the Hill Tribe People up near Chang Rai.He went with a NGO and they built a school for the village children.He loved it there.I'm sure your Daughter will have a great time :-D..Good old Dad.Thats what Dad do isn't it :-D :-D.How long is the drive to Heathrow from you? At least the roads should have been quiet at that time in the morning.

Well I notice now the feeder needs topping up again,so had better go and due my duty :-D
More rain on the cards tonight I see :-| :-|

We too have sunshine. Have just driven a short distance for coffee at our local garden centre and a lane and fields that we have not seen flooded in the 22 years we have lived here were flooded. We drove round there Tuesday so that has happened since then. Didn't think we'd had that much rain in the past three days must have been over night.