Visitation

Just for a change I had a bit of a first this last week. It was Easter Monday morning, not too early but early enough for a Bank Holiday. I'd gone downstairs to put some coffee on (love my coffee machine) for breakfast and as I went into the kitchen glanced through the window into the garden.

Now we've a little bird feeding set up in the back garden, a rickety wooden bird table (well I did assemble it myself), a suspended feeder and water dish with which we hope to attract allsorts of exotic and unusual bird life, though normally we have to make do with starlings and sparrows with the odd appearance of greenfinches and the like.

However, on this particular morning the table was quiet and so too was the rest of the garden. Then, as I drew closer to the window, I could see why … on the middle of the lawn, hopping about with her attention centred on one little bush next to the right hand fence was a sparrowhawk. It looked a lot like she had lost some prey round the back or underneath the bush by the way she didn’t seem to notice me, and her movement from one side of the bush to the other. She may have been a mostly brown feathered creature, but the white stripe over her glaring yellow eye gave her something of an evil appearance, certainly not a bird to mess with.

I quietly moved back into the living room to get my mobile phone hoping to be able to get a photo of the unusual visitor. Once I’d located the phone and switched to camera mode I then went back into the kitchen – she was still there, but looking a little confused as whatever she thought there was under the bush was not making its presence know (can’t say I blame them really). I made it to the kitchen window, but just as I was lining up the shot she spied me and with a few beats of her wings was away at some great speed.

I went out into the garden, but could see no sign of the bird making its escape and nothing appeared to be under the bush either. So far I’ve not seen any return to our little garden of the sparrowhawk.

Brrrrr!

Thank goodness it wasn't like this yesterday. Yeah, I know it's not really all that snowy by other peoples standards but it's bound to cause us English type folk a few problems - very pretty though.
Just came back yesterday from a lovely weekend with my girlfriend down at Center Parcs, Sherwood Forest. We stayed in villa 199 which I'd recommened to any couple wanting a fairly quiet time away, but close to most of the main attractions not to need hiking boots. One highlight would have to be the wildlife found just outside the villa's patio doors, including grey squirrels, rabbits, mallard ducks, moorhens, blue, longtailed and great tits, chaffinches and even a little goldcrest - fantastic! It was so great to have all that wild(ish) life outside our door, though we could have done without the scary mute swan pair which came right up to the glass of the patio and started knocking on the glass with their bills.
Really looking forward to going again, though we'll probably try the one up in Whinfell Forest, Cumbria next time just to see our elusive native red squirrels.

Ribbit

More wildlife spotting, again at night, around 11:30pm - who needs to get up at 6 in the morning when all the wildlife will come to you? So anyway, I was driving back from my girlfriends place last night, and just as I was approaching the ring road I did spy a little frog hoping its merry way over the road.
How it managed to make it to the other side I have no idea, as there was a car in front of me which the frog just seemed to jump out from underneath, without a care in the world. And me being of the geeky variety could only think of that classic video game Frogger. I hope the little guy got to where he was going.

Geeses

I'm guessing that spring is trying to sprung at the moment - or something like that.

Last night, round midnight I was amazed to firstly hear then see geese of one make or another flying high in the fairly clear sky. Then were heading roughly northwards in a mishappen V, there must have been at least 50 or so - a magnificent sight at any time, but with the almost full moon illuminating there steadily beating wings it was fantastic.

They didn't take long to dissappear into the night sky ... I wonder where they were heading, wether they were just moving to another site nearby or heading to a different country all together, and I hope they get to continue to travel over the next few years and don't become a victim of bird flu.

Windows Recovered

Well I've had some fun and games over the last week, pc went a bit weird so re-installed everything a number of times - hours of joy I can tell you. At least there's more programs and stuff working on it now than not.