Canal Walk

 Finally  my duckling hunt paid off. It was a beautiful (but cold,  a heavy frost overnight) morning, and as I had bad earache yesterday I decided to go for a walk along the canal rather than cycle in the park. I walked to the lock along the road, because where the houseboats are, and beside the train station, is usually the best place for finding ducklings. Nothing there except a mallard drake enjoying the sun, and a moorhen showing the beautiful browns in its plumage in the sunshine. Normally I think of them as black birds. But, despite the recent heavy rain and frequent hail showers, I decided to risk the mud along the towpath and walk back home canal-side, and that was where I found my chickies at last. They were tiny, I don't think they can be hatched that long. And yet this time last year, any we saw were well past the fuzzball stage. I wonder why they were so much later this year...

Apologies for the brightness - it was, as I said, a very bright sunny morning. I'm sorry, for some reason the photos are showing in reverse of the order I wanted, and it's one thing that is not so easy in the newer Blogger dashboard, moving them around. My walk started at the bottom of the photos here. Many of the houseboats were decked out with planters and tubs full of colourful Spring flowers. The snail was on the side of a barge which does charter trips. 

Birds...

I had a piece of faux leather background left after making my card for the Art Neko blog last week - so I used it to make a card to share here this week. This sweet bird and nest are from the Flowers and Whimsy sheet of stamps. Next up will  be a card using that lovely birdhouse image, I think.

This one is stamped on watercolour paper and coloured with distress inks. My first background, whatever brand of masking tape I used curled when I heated it, so I had to gently heat it, take it all off and start again with a different brand. Hmm, I think most of what I have left is the one that curled.

A couple of garden birds - a very wet and presumably very hungry goldfinch this morning, and a little baby blue. We seem to have a lot of birds around since we came back from holidays - maybe because all the feeders are topped up again.

We got to see a lot of birds while we were away, first of all visiting the ornithological park in the Marais Poitevin - walking distance from the campsite, and then going back to the bird park in the Camargue. We weren't lucky enough to see bee eaters this year, but did get to see avocets and were also highly entertained by these bareback riders....

June Favourites

...are thin on the ground as we spent three weeks in France, camping, and some of what I made before we left were Christmas cards. Holiday photos to follow - still dealing with piles of washing and a tent which needs to be re-waterproofed before putting it away.

This month's header is a photo of some old dead flower heads from a bunch of flowers I had last July - I can't even remember what they were, but as the fell on the windowsill I thought they looked so pretty.

I'll leave you with a very short video of white peacocks. We were so fortunate to be walking along the river bank just at the right moment - I mostly took photos - and just watched them -  but snatched a short video:

Spring has sprung...

There were some grey days this week but today was beautifully sunny - has been all day, so handknits are almost dry on the line. We took a walk in St. Catherine's Park in the morning, a few more photos to follow in another post.

For a quick peek, here's the water meadow down by the river.

And here are the Spring creatures we saw in it. We did also see the Highland cattle, as per my blog header photo this month.

Duck Fest

The mandarins and mallards, with the occasional coot, moorhen and tufted duck. I had to up the ISO almost as high as it would go, since by this time it had got a little overcast and I only had brought my Canon. So the photo quality isn't great...

Bath Time

It was a mild day today, dull when I went shopping early in the morning but getting sunny and bright as the day wore on. In fact, we went out blackberry picking in the afternoon and came home with 2 3/4 lb blackberries and another handful of sloes to toss into my current batch of sloe gin.
Before lunch C was power-hosing our organic waste bin. It usually ends up being me who cleans it, because it's collected on Tuesdays and I can rarely wait till the weekend before using it again - it was a treat not to do it this time round. Anyway, while he was out in the back yard working away getting ready to clean it,  I went out to fill the bird feeders, and out of the corner of my eye, saw a robin fly into a pot tray that only has a couple of pots in it. He had a lovely bath - and I spent about 5 minutes watching him before I decided to risk coming in for the camera and hoping he would still be there. He was nearly finished - but here's a quick video of the end of his ablutions.

Starlings

I was coming home from work yesterday, and stopped to watch a large flock of starlings. I'm not sure what was attracting them to land, but there were so many, and so noisy! It was quite windy, so there's a lot of wind noise too - but in real life, the starlings were louder. Several times they all flew up and landed again nearby - I'm not sure what startled them. Once it was me, but I think perhaps it was also the seagulls and magpies.

Love Is In The Air

"Love is in the air everywhere I look around
Love is in the air every sight and every sound...." 

Well - you'd think there should be sound, with those open beaks. But I haven't been able to hear it over the gulls, and the rush hour traffic. I think you can hear the grey wagtails, though.

Communal Bathing by the Seaside

I was out visiting my aunt on Thursday, and went for a walk along the seafront. I really enjoyed watching this little flock of starlings having fun bathing in one of the rock pools. In the last photo there's one who looks totally soaked.

Turn your volume down for the video - unless the music got added in (which seems to have failed) all there is is a of wind noise.

Cormorant

I had terrible stomach cramps almost all the way in to work yesterday and couldn't wait for the bus to get into town! But as I was walking up the quays towards work I saw a cormorant take off from just in front of me, and fly under the bridge towards the station. So when I got to that bridge I had to stop.
Sorry for the wind noise - maybe I should have edited it out, but the sound of the train and the trams going by give an urban context which you wouldn't know was there just from the visuals. At first C couldn't believe that I was up at Heuston station.



And one of these days I am promising myself to sit down and finish off my Paris photos. Apart from anything else I'd like to get them printed!!

Mostly birds

While all the birds found our feeder quite quickly, and returned within a couple of hours of putting food out after being away for a few days, we also have another less welcome visitor!

The photos of the sparrow and young great-tit were taken while we were spending a few days minding my aunt's dogs. The weather wasn't great - the best day was the afternoon we arrived, and after that there were several grey, wet days.

The robin is on our back wall - they all seem to be moulting at the moment. I had one on the patio this afternoon with no tail.

Happy Days are Here Again

We got back from Paris to discover that our neighbours had cut down their mahonia tree. I'm not at all surprised, it's never recovered from the heavy snows a couple of years back and has been a bit threadbare ever since. And I certainly won't miss stepping on those desperately spiky leaves in my bare feet, or the crushed berries on the patio, or the flowers getting everywhere. BUT, it was where I hung all my bird feeders. So, off to the shops to buy a bird-feeding station. I'll have to get another one some time when I've persuaded C that one isn't enough. The peanut feeder is tied on at the moment as there aren't enough hanging hooks for everything. In any case, it didn't take long for all the birds to find it, and we've been seeing the greenfinches, goldfinches, sparrows and dunnocks and all the varieties of tit. The only missing ones are the redpolls - I hope they'll come back some time. It's been funny to see one goldfinch having a decided preference for sunflower seeds whereas another one goes straight to the niger seeds.
It took a little adjusting to get the seed tray at a suitable height where I could actually see it from the house and the pigeons couldn't use it as a convenient stand to help themselves from the main seed feeder, but once I got it right, the dunnocks and robins are enjoying it. Hopefully the chaffinches, another ground-feeder - will too, when they find it.
A robin has also been visiting the back door again after a break - and today when I was standing there waiting to shut the back gate after C went out, we had a very welcome little visitor.

Miscellany

I should have a few photos edited tomorrow - and a new header for March! Where does time go?

In the mean time, a quick snippet of one of our robins, with some bird song.




We're seeing a lot of a pair of chaffinches at the moment, with the male in bright plumage -  but the weather is so grey and overcast that it's hard to get a good photo.

Favourite cards for February:

I used gold acrylic paint in the first one, and loved the brushed-metal look that it gave.

Birds

We are regularly having two robins together these days - one still a bit of a dimwit, and one who knows that when it hears the door open it's likely to get food.

Redpolls on the feeder. They're quite feisty little birds - while there may be six or more around, they don't seem to tolerate more than three at a time on the feeder.



Still getting regular visits from the female blackcap, though I haven't seen a male yet. And we had long-tailed tits on the fat-ball feeder the other day too - a real treat!