Birds...

As promised, I found a couple of photos of my hop-along gull.
He seems to show a marked preference for standing on solid ground (or at least some of the junk that litters the river bed!) and when you see the photo of the regular two-legged gull sinking into the mud it's not hard to understand why. I'm sure one leg is a lot less stable.
Also some juvenile gulls - I'm not quite sure whether they're Black-backed or Herring.

And recently I saw a juvenile goldfinch on the feeders. C asked me how I knew that was what it was. Well, when I saw one this afternoon and called him to have a look, he knew instantly what it was - even without that distinctive red head the adults have. Taken through a not very clean back window...

One last photo - when I was walking down the road the other day I saw a dead dragonfly - already attracting a lot of wasps and flies, but at least they flew off when I knelt down to take a photo. I suppose it wasn't too far away from the canal, but it was sad to see it just lying there dead on the ground. They're quite big, over two and a half inches long.  I think this is probably a female Common Hawker.

Almost Missing in Action

I thought I'd better post something before August is over! I don't know where it has gone, but it's just zipping by.

With the schools still out (not for much longer) the traffic into town has been so light in the mornings that I've had more time than normal for watching the birds at Heuston Station.
One morning I spotted a black-headed gull with a ring, and I spotted him again the next morning. I was directed to a website to look up all the various ringing projects, and it turns out that he was ringed as a young male last year in Antwerp in the Netherlands. I'm still watching out for him, but except at low tide when the birds are on the mudflats, it's hard to spot the ring.

There is also a one-legged gull: I've spent a lot of time watching over the last few days to make sure, and having watched him take off and land, I am certain that it is that he just has one leg, and not that he prefers to stand on one when he's perched. I'll try to edit and upload a photo of him this week - I have a few in the camera, just haven't looked at them yet.

Favourite cards for July...

I'm surprised to discover I have any gold embossing powder left after the Asian fish one. It's still just a piece of heavy card, in case I decide that I would prefer to turn it into a hanging rather than use it on a card.

Autumn Evenings

The evenings are already noticeably shorter - but it was still bright enough for us to go for a walk in the park after a late dinner this evening, and make the most of a holiday Monday.

Most of the ducks were settling down for the evening, but this heron was fishing (we saw him catch something, too) and a coot and chick did come over to us for some of my bread crumbs. They've already harvested the grass in most of the park, but if the weather stays as it is (warm, sunny, some rain) I can see that they might even be able to cut a second crop of hay; the grass is already quite long in places.

(the bee on the allium is actually from August 2011, in Birr. I couldn't find any suitable header photos from August last year)