Hobbies and Crafts

I haven't seen the flying ants this year but it does seem to be a good year for butterflies. We have had a few painted ladies in the garden including one today which was the largest I have ever seen.

This afternoon I cleaned the bird bath yet again. I really dislike that job because it seems a real waste of effort. The damn pigeons think it is their own personal latrine and seem to be queueing up to use it as soon as I have cleaned it :-|

Flying ants were on the move here yesterday horrid things.

We had a lot of butterflies yesterday but mainly red admirals, cabbage whites, also a different white I thought might have been a wood white, tortoiseshell and a few that zoomed over my head that I couldn’t see against the sun. Not seen any painted ladies though.or maybe I have because they are so close to tortoiseshell. I will have to pay more attention.

Our canal is lovely, we have walked at different times the full length all but a short stretch that is in the town part of Gloucester. We tend to do short walks of less than four miles these days but it is a favourite stretch which takes us from Saul round Frampton on Severn a very pleasant walk. However we are friends of The Willow Trust which has two double width canal boats and is a charity that takes disabled and other vulnerable people on trips down the canal. We are mainly friends for fund raising support. At least once a year the friends have an opportunity to have a trip on one of the boats. We love that it is such a peaceful trip not very long, an hour altogether with tea or coffee and biscuits.

Hi Island :-) I am so jealous of those of you living near a canal or river. We are a good few miles from our nearest Canal which is Market Harborough. I am in 'countryside ' though , which is sadly all being destroyed with major works in preparation for thousands of houses .The noise and dust is horrendous .What has happened to all the Badgers Setts opposite us I have no idea .
Butterflies ...we have lots of now which is lovely but I just dont know the difference (other than the Cabbage Whites). I just wish the Butterflies would not suddenly fly through our open patio doors into the house. I spend so long trying to get them out safely without damaging their wings. I need a Butterfly net :-D

I think flying Ants might have been and gone.It has been the right time for them .Plenty of other normal ants though :-S
How sweet of your dog and the pony having a little nose rub Island :-D

I've just been reading about the 'ten year explosion' of painted ladies - BBC news. I haven't seen any yet but we do have red admirals and peacock butterflies - and too many whites of course.

I seem to have missed the flying ants this year or are they late due to weather conditions?

Sadly, our narrowboating days are over but there is always something else to do - there's a garden and veg beds to tend for starters, we couldn't leave that to the mercy of freak temperatures.

Vera, your river, water meadows and cattle sounds idyllic. There's often some ponies in a field next to our canal. There's also a billy goat, whose presence can be detected long before he comes into view :-0.
I had a magical moment a few years ago shortly after adopting our dog. We were walking along the towpath and stopped to greet the pony in 'billy goat field'. My little dog looked up as the pony put its head down over the fence and they gently touched noses. Even if I'd had my camera with me, the moment was so brief but enchanting.


Sorry, I digress. Back later with some birdie talk.

Not many birds around today. I think there is plenty of food around for them at the moment so they don’t need to come and eat at the feeders. The mealworms have disappeared so something has been in. I hope it’s the two robins. I usually hear the starlings when they are after the mealworms.

I don’t think my little brown butterflies were Small Skippers Ann. The wings didn’t look right for Skippers. They were probably the Meadow Brown which are quite common.

We are getting a lot of peacock butterflies. They seem to be attracted to a white buddleia that we have in a half barrel.

EDIT It must be nice living by the canal. No canals round here but we are only a few minutes walk from the river and some lovely water meadows. In the summer there are usually highland cattle being grazed on the meadows. I haven’t seen them this year but they move them around so they might be down the other end of town.

The canal walk is lovely all year round. At the moment (holiday time) there are a lot of narrow boats as well as the ones that are permanent dwellings! These come and go on a regular basis so you get to know people when you're on your walk. OH and I often thought about getting a boat, but never did it and are now too old!! Perhaps just as well!! Our daughter and son in law have a motor launch on the Thames which we get an invite to now and again, which is lovely!
The woodpecker family has visited this morning and the swallows were out and about earlier, but have disappeared now! No doubt they'll be back tonight tucked up inside our old garage come storehouse!

Another living near a canal here :-D Five minute walk to the locks, it's great for walking the dog and very popular with locals and boaters alike - very picturesque too with not many houses overlooking. A lovely country walk all year round and fabulous in the autumn when the leaves colour up.

At our previous location there were few birds to be seen - mainly feral pigeons (tree rats) so we always travelled to good (quiet) birding spots. Now, we don't even have to set foot through the door to see all sorts of 'dickie birds'. Long tail, great, blue tits, sparrows, goldfinch, nuthatch, robins. Also blackbirds, collared doves (don't they sound 'whingey'!) thrushes, starlings, jackdaw. A real treat is buzzards flying overhead, mewing. We also have swifts screaming up the street.
Bird heaven for us :-D
This year we had a pair of robins nesting, we're pretty sure the eggs hatched judging by the trips back and forth but sadly, we think ratty took them :-(

The blackbird nesting successfully fledged two young. Always a pleasure to see them exploring the garden - good dog takes no notice of them, he's more of a ratty man :-D

Hello Pippyn, For once I have not been on here regularly and somebody new has joined us. You are very welcome, especially as you have lots of wildlife to talk about. We live not too far from the Gloucester to Sharpness canal, love walking the footpath.

Like Vera our birds seem to fluctuate. At the moment we have 3 young male blackbirds who come regularly to feed at the patio table in front of the lounge window. We also have a large number of very young sparrows, three adult goldfinches and occasionally a couple of young on the niger seeds. Wood pigeons and collard dives and a couple of female blackbirds. The blackbirds, both sexes also come for their daily bath. We don’t see much other wild life except the butterflies but do see an occasional fox out the front of the house.

Vera could the brown butterflies be small skippers?

We gave up on our CDs Pippyn . I often wonder what old CDs of mine OH used . Probably hits of the 70'80's ... I wondered where they had all gone :-D ;-)
You aren't that far from me really .How lovely to live near a Canal . We are about 10 miles from our nearest one in Market Harborough.

Hello Jane. I'm in Berkshire, fairly near the Kennet and Avon canal which is great for walking and of course wild life!!
Windy here today but much better than yesterday! The only sign of bird life has been the two robins and a couple of fat pigeons eying up our winter greens. We use old CD's tied into a bamboo pole to deter them, but unfortunately they get use to them so a re-think is needed - perhaps a scarecrow - OH?!!!!! :-D :-D

Whereabouts are you Pippyn? I am in Northants. Love your comment about watching the birds at breakfast :-D :-D
It is absolutely tipping it down here now.I can't see the cat going out again today. He will just have to grit his teeth and use the litter tray :-D

Thank you so much for the nice welcome. I was a bit unsure about joining as I didn't want to butt in!
It's been so wet here today that there has been virtually no birds at all. Even the swallows have stayed firmly tucked up!!
Our bird table and hanging feeders are directly outside our kitchen window so we are able to watch all the activity while having our breakfast - better than conversation!!!
Hope tomorrow is finer!!!!

Hi Pippyn,

Welcome to the boards. It used to be quite active on this thread but there’s only a few of us posting from time to time now so it’s nice to have someone new join in.

We’ve had quite a few butterflies around this summer - lots of the whites but also red admiral, painted lady (only a couple of those), peacock and at the moment quite a few small brown butterflies that won’t stay still long enough for me to try and identify them.

You have a good selection of birds. We only have a small garden and the birds seem to come and go. We had a big flock of sparrows for a long while but they have suddenly disappeared and for the first time this year we have had a couple of thrushes, though I haven’t seen them for a few days.

We get frogs in our tiny, tiny pond - at the moment I can only see 1 but sometimes there are several.

Hi Pippyn you are very welcome to join in here as it is always nice to see someone new.
It seems like you have a wonderful garden full of wild life :-D Perfect for this thread :-D
I haven't seen our woodpecker for a while now but it is probably because I had to move the window feeder away from the house .It was a frequent visitor on that one.
I think we must have a Wrens nest in one of the trees right next to the house . Our Cat Thomas was trying to climb it the other day and the Wren (I am assuming Mum or Dad was kicking up a right racket). For such a tiny bird they have a very loud voice :-) I managed to shoo the cat back down . He was having trouble getting up through the branches anyway which was good and touch wood I havent seen him try again.He better not. Stick to Mice and Rabbits is what I say and leave the birds alone !!!

I've been looking in on this forum for a week or two (or five!!) and have taken the plunge to join just for a month to see how it goes! I am very interested in wild life, and where we live has so much all of which I would love to share!
At the moment we have a family of woodpeckers, bluetits, swallows on their second brood, a sweet baby robin + mum/dad?! (only appears to be one though!) wagtails! Also jennywren is busy collecting spiders off the fence and more beside! I also saw a Red Admiral yesterday on the Buddleia.

I had a Red Admiral in the lounge Ann today. I managed to get it out again safely.In the last week I have had 3 Butterflies that have found their way in through the open patio door. All safe in the end :-D I worry so much about damaging the wings when trying ot get them out .
Just found a deheaded bird . It could have been a LTT :-( I think Mr Thomas might have had something to do with the Murder :-| :-|

Over the past three days we have had five very young red admiral butterflies in our conservatory. We can only assume they have been hatching out in there. How lovely. They happily flew out when we opened the door.

Our water feature pond is where both the blackbirds and the robin have their daily baths and the sparrows shower in the cascade. We also have two birds baths and a fountain type water feature which the birds love.

You are right about the water Pat. We have a tiny “pond” and a bird bath and I check the water levels every day as they do evaporate in this heat. The birds don’t use the pond much, they seem to leave that for the frogs, but the bird bath is in constant use. This morning there were 7 or 8 starlings all fighting to get in the bird bath at the same time.