Tag: nature

My grumpy little friend.

Grey squirrel

Look who I met today. Isn’t he adorable?

This little grey squirrel spent all morning running about in the rain, digging holes in my back garden and burying his stash of winter goodies.

When he’d finished, he decided that it would be a good idea to sit on my fence and bark/honk/screech at me for a good five minutes. Thanks, Mr Squirrel.

It wasn’t until fairly recently that I knew what noise a squirrel made. I’d heard the sound before, plenty of times, but because it was coming from up a tree I always assumed it was made by a bird. Here’s a short video (not mine) where you can hear it for yourself. Doesn’t he sound cross?!

You can see from the picture that it’s pretty dark and wet here today. It was properly dark when I got up this morning, for the first time this year, and I guess the squirrels have decided that it’s going to be winter soon.

I don’t mind seeing this little fellow around the garden – but I’d like him to be a little quieter next time! It’s difficult to concentrate on sewing when you’re being yelled at by a squirrel…

Scarves for bees!

Bee

No, not tiny little woollies to keep them warm. Instead, Seasalt in Cornwall are holding their annual “Go Knit!” charity drive.

This year they’re collecting donations of hand knitted scarves, and all proceeds from their sale will go to the Bumblebee Conservation Trust.

Bees and knitting are two of my passions, so obviously I’ve sent my scarf down to Cornwall. If you’d like to do the same, you can find the details here.

While I was thinking about scarves, I’ve re-listed a few on Etsy.

I have a whole pile of things that I’ve made which I haven’t got around to listing yet, so I should probably do that quite soon. Those badges and wheat bags aren’t going to sell themselves from the depths of my Shed!

Butterflies and Bees.

Painted Lady

To make the most of the fact that I happened to be off sick on the one day in the last fortnight when it wasn’t chucking it down with rain the entire time, I went for a very short walk with the camera – just down to the edge of the lake and back.

Paul’s taken the 300mm lens with him to Germany, so instead of struggling with the 200mm, I decided to have a play with the macro (70mm) lens.

Sitting on the teasels was a slightly ragged Painted Lady butterfly. I sneaked up on it with the camera, and it wasn’t bothered in the slightest.

A bit further along there’s a big bank of thistles, and they were covered in bees! I saw at least four different types of bee, although I wasn’t able to get decent photos of all of them.

I’ve been lucky enough to have a very positive response to my photos since I’ve been using a digital SLR. I do have some up for sale in my Etsy store, but I thought I’d simplify the process even further and make a page right here when you can buy prints and canvases in a number of different sizes.

Up at the top of the page, there’s a shiny new tab marked “Photos“. Have a look, and let me know what you think!

Fresh from the bird bath.

Young blackbird

Here’s another bird picture, by way of an apology for my lack of posting. I seem to have been super busy lately, and I’ll have loads of new plans to tell you about very soon.

In the meantime, my baby blackbird is growing up!

Here he is, fresh from the bird bath.

Fluffy Finch.

Goldfinch

I’ve been trying to catch a snapshot of a pair of goldfinches for ages, but they never seem to sit still for long enough. This afternoon I established my position as bird paparazzo extraordinaire when I saw this little fellow on the fence, grabbed the camera, spun around and caught him just seconds before he flew away!

Now I feel less bad about failing to chop down the enormous great weed that’s been growing vigorously in one of our abandoned flower beds. The goldfinches obviously have a very important use for all the fluff that it’s producing.

Early Bird.

Young thrush

Being based out in the garden, I’ve noticed that first thing in the morning is a really great time for birdwatching. The weather’s much cooler, especially at the moment, it’s nice and quiet, and there aren’t too many people around.

This young fellow was sitting on my fence for ages, happily singing away.

I’ve labelled him on Flickr as a young song thrush, because of his spots, but looking back through my pictures I’m thinking that it might actually be the fledgling blackbird.

What do you think? Are these guys both the same bird?

Heatwave.

At the risk of sounding like a miserable old so-and-so, I am really not enjoying this heatwave! My Shed is like a sauna, and switching on the fan only serves to move the too-hot air around a bit.

I went outside to stand in a shady spot in the garden, and caught sight of these magpies on top of my neighbour’s conservatory. I couldn’t quite work out what they were doing, so I pulled out the zoom lens and had a look. It turned out that they were drinking the drips of water from a leaky overflow pipe. Clearly they’re not enjoying the heatwave very much either.

My plan for the rest of the afternoon? Refill the bird bath, and see whether anybody else needs a bit of a drink.

Stag Beetle Season

Stag Beetle

I’ve been AWOL for a few days now – sorry about that.
I had a very busy start to the week, followed by an extremely unexpected trip to hospital!

I haven’t been up to anything much for the past day or so except for sleeping, so I hereby present a picture of a beautiful stag beetle that we spotted on the way back from the hospital.

He was not very pleased to see us, and kept rearing up and waving his pincers in a menacing fashion. At least he didn’t hiss at us. I know he’s only three inches long, but that’s still pretty scary!

Strange bird behaviour?

Red Kite

Red Kites are pretty common where I live. Thanks to their reintroduction into the area around the M40, I see them circling above my neighbourhood every day.

I’ve seen the kites being mobbed by gangs of crows before now – especially at the time of year when there are eggs and chicks for the crows to protect.

This morning I could hear an unusual bird song, so I went outside to have a look. I could see a single kite being mobbed by a group of much smaller birds. Definitely not crows.

It’s an overcast day and they were very high, so I wasn’t absolutely certain at first, but I think (mostly from looking up the sounds) that the kite was being mobbed by a gang of House Martins.

This was very exciting – firstly because it was a behaviour that I’d never seen before, and secondly because I didn’t know that we had any local house martins. Given that they’re frequently seen “near water and in the vicinity of woodland” I’m now rather surprised that I hadn’t seen them until today!

Painted Lady

Painted Lady

I don’t do very well in the summer. I suffer from heatstroke, I burn easily, and I find it very difficult to function once the weather starts to heat up.

I spent most of today hiding in my Shed, sorting out another pile of patterns and fabrics to go on Ebay. (I’ll be listing them on Monday.)

By about seven thirty it was finally cool enough to go outside and take the camera for a little walk. The first thing I spotted was this shrub, which was absolutely covered in Painted Lady butterflies.

Paul’s been out for a helicopter ride today, taking photos over London.
I’m very happy with this little piece of beauty a little closer to home.