Don't Bug Me

It's getting warmer, it most definitely is. Last time C visited his parents they'd been sitting in the sun at the end of their garden, and yesterday he did the same.
After he came in he felt something in his hair, and when he put his hand up to feel it, this Hawthorn Shield Bug (I think) hopped off and landed on the floor. Luckily (because I had something under the grill and couldn't spare much time) the macro lens was on the camera, so I took a couple of quick shots after bringing it outside.

We haven't had any long-tailed tits for a week now. I miss them, scruffy little things that they are, but I hope it's a good sign that they're now finding plenty of insects in the wild. Certainly I've seen bumblebees and even butterflies flying around. We still have a bunch of redpolls and goldfinches, thoough.

A redpoll, and two long-tailed tits from last week.

Hot news - I think there are little robins in the hedgerow. I hear the cheeping, and I see an adult flying back with food in its mouth. Maybe that inept male robin wasn't totally ineffective in his courtship. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for some baby robins!

Mixed Bag

A couple of photos from an alternative route to work that I've recently started walking occasionally. It helps that I pass the HSQ Superquinn where they have one of the best yoghurts I've tasted outside France. C is pretty fond of them too.

First photo is, I assume, an extractor hood on the roof of Heuston station.
Second photo is the Brunel building in HSQ (Heuston South Quarter) - the curved one on the right. See that blue sky!! It's been pretty windy (enough to get hand-washed Aran sweaters dry yesterday), but a lot milder and how lovely to see some more blue skies. I know Brunel worked on the railway line from Dublin down to Greystones, including the tunnels between Bray and Greystones, so I know for sure there's a railway link with him. I haven't looked at what any of the other buildings are called.

Shadows on a fence

The robins are still squaring off any time I put food out. The one on the wall is the less dominant male, the one on the log has puffed himself up to look big and intimidating.

I had to order a large bag of nyjer seed online recently; between the goldfinches, the redpolls who are back in force and the siskins it's going down pretty fast, and it's hard to find reliably in any of the shops here - and expensive! More blue sky and a goldfinch. I think some time C is going to get me a better zoom lens!!

April Showers

C was pretty wet when he got home too. He'd put on all his waterproof gear in the morning and didn't really need it, so he decided to take a chance on the way home. I saw this little robin just when C drove his bike into the back yard.
But at last we have a little warmth! I've taken a gamble and planted a few seeds...

Spring?

One quick photo from a visit to Farmleigh yesterday, because this one needs no editing.
It was cold enough, I don't think temperatures rose much above 8C (46, 27 F), but in the sunshine it was WARM.
And it was sunny! We woke up early, so I cooked the German Apple Pancake for breakfast and still had time to potter around a little before we went to Farmleigh (which doesn't open till ten). There is a Japanese Festival tomorrow, and I felt so sad for them because all the cherry trees behind the Boathouse Café and along the edge of the lawn where they had sited some marquees were as bare as bare could be. And the magnolias are still all tightly cased in their fuzzy  - what do you call them?
There weren't even as many daffodils as usual, but the scilla was out all over.

March cards

Two of my favourite cards for March are Christmas cards, so I won't post them here...
It felt like an unproductive month, especially when there was a week that I didn't make any cards at all while we were dog-sitting, but I find I have quite a few favourites.
The first one is Serendipity Squares - a messy technique from way back but always fun. The third one is done with Couleur d'Art pencils, which I've had for years. How did it take me this long to learn that they acat as a resist with inks, so I can colour and then sponge the background without worrying about masking?  I got a set of 24 a long time ago when I worked in import and distribution of fine art supplies - the box of 48 was never in stock when I wanted it. 24 is limiting, though - so a large box of pencils is coming my way later this month.

Spring?

Well, Easter has been and gone, along with one of the coldest Marches on record.
Not too much chocolate here for Easter - but an eggy surprise when I was doing fried eggs for a bunch and found two double-yolkers. Not much time for fancy photography because I like my yolks runny!

 

A male siskin has joined the female at the feeders - and his colours are so vibrant. My book says they are the same size as the goldfinches, but this one looks slightly smaller to me. C is still lamenting that he hasn't managed to spot a waxwing anywhere, but the siskin is a good runner-up consolation prize.

The redpolls are also back, although not in as large numbers as a couple of years ago. Hopefully more will be along - they're fun to watch.

And the squirrel is up to his usual acrobatics. When I spotted him using the bracket for holding the water dish to balance on, I moved it further down the pole, but of course that didn't deter him!

I had to put some poison down when I saw a rat under the feeder. While I could do without the squirrel, I'm quite glad that he hasn't gone the same way as the rat(s).

Birds

Just a quick post   - I badly need to catch up with editing some photos. With any luck the long weekend for Easter will give me some of the time I need.
It's desperately cold and we have a lot of snow, though it doesn't lie for long in the daytime. I was hoping to be out putting compost on my borders and planting seeds, but it doesn't look likely!

Long tailed tits on the feeder.
.Robin in the garden, all puffed up against the cold. Definite signs of courtship  behaviour but the dominant male is not very responsive to the female's calls, and rather inept when he does react. As well as mealworms I have some suet pellets - and when he couldn't fit one into the female's beak he flew off with it and ate it himself. If, as I guess, the courtship behaviour is meant to show how good a mate he'd be at helping to feed a young brood, he's failing miserably on current showing!
Grey wagtail in town. in one of the rare sunny spells, singing away.

St. Patrick

I found a different photo for St. Patrick's Day this year - the coat of arms over the door of St. Patrick's University Hospital.  Founded in 1746 with a bequest from Jonathan Swift (Gulliver's Travels, Dean of St. Patrick's Cathedral it was one of the first hospitals to be planned and designed as a specialist psychiatric hospital.

I also have a couple of pictures of a city worker painting out graffiti on a gate. I like the first photo, but it needs the second one to put it in context.

Quick Picks

We've had bitterly cold weather this week, some snow, some grey skies and some lovely sunshine - mostly in the mornings.
The snow never actually lay on the ground that long, and on Monday it was so windy that what little there was formed drifts, leaving open green spaces and sudden white patches.

This photo is our neighbour's roof, where it looked like a fine dusting of icing (confectioners) sugar.

A quick snap of one of the robins. I was planting some sweetpea seedlings into pots the other day, and the robins were in heaven because they found a treasure-trove of worms underneath the sack of potting soil!

I'm not sure if this is some type of breeding plumage on the cormorant. I need to look back over older photos. It was the red splash that first caught my eye - and then I saw how much white there was on the head - as if he'd been sprinkled with snow too! The other day, for the first time ever, I saw not just one or two of them but six all perched on the wall across the road from Heuston Station. Digital zoom, so slightly more pixellated than I like.

And a fine black-headed gull.

Google are terminating Reader! How can they do that!! I'll have to find another programme before the clock runs out.

Cards

...and just finished reading: The Elephant Keepers' Children by Peter Hoeg. I picked it up in the library recently, because I had read and quite enjoyed Miss Smilla's Feeling for Snow when it came out. C took a vague look at the book and dismissed it as not for him. But after he heard me giggling away here and there as I was reading it, he gave it a go, and it was my turn to hear him chuckling away. We renewed it again and passed it on to his mother who said she enjoyed it so much and she too laughed a lot. (Never having been over 5 foot even at her tallest, and now probably a couple of inches less, I think she really enjoyed the description of the short grandmother standing on things to reach the kitchen table). It was a strange book, slightly surreal (it reminded me of Sophie's World), but thoroughly enjoyable.

Favourite cards for February: