Baby Birds

I spent way too much time this morning watching the birds on the feeders. But what is a day off for if it's not to relax. I do believe we have two baby robins, but they hop around so fast I didn't really get a good picture. There are definitely at least two little coal tits, and as usual a whole raft of little sparrows. This shot of the sparrows was sheer luck.

Bluetits

Coaltits

Edited because actually I think this one is a baby great tit, not a coaltit.

And this one is so small and scruffy that it's hard to be sure which it is at all.

Come to think of it, in all the time I sat there I never saw the adult great tits, but I am sure they are still around.

In the Garden

I thought I was going to stay in a time warp and share a couple of things I inherited from my mother, after getting in the retro mood last night. But that can keep for another day. I spotted this beautiful greenfinch this morning while I was washing the floors. It's funny, some of the birds are still in beautiful plumage, like a very shy chaffinch, and then there are a whole bunch of scruffy juveniles. After saying to C only yesterday that it was a while since I'd seen a coaltit, I spotted a little young one this morning - no photo, though.

I like this one because I don't often get to see the symmetry of the tail and wing markings from a back view.

He certainly likes his sunflower seeds. I have a bag that I am mixing in with the regular seed mix these days.

Also a sad cross-section of one of my nasturtiums before they went into the compost. Sorry if it's too much information, but those little green things on it that look like tiny hay bales - well, suffice to say that they are chewed up and digested nasturtium. I couldn't work out what they were at first.

 
I also had a lovely walk in Farmleigh this morning, so later in the week I will have a couple of heron, duck and bird pictures to share. I accidentally stood on a plug when I was taking the deep fryer out to the shed this morning, and my foot was a bit sore, so I was more than glad to spend time just standing and watching the birds rather than doing too much walking.

For Old Time's Sake

 It poured and poured on Friday. It must have started some time on Thursday, because C gave our dinner guest a lift home instead of letting him get the train. Goodness, I loved hearing the Cornish accent again, and as he is a rugby player with a good healthy appetite, it was an opportunity to make Baked Alaska for dessert and know that it would (almost) all get eaten.
And it rained most of yesterday too. Good for the garden, at any rate. The nasturtiums have gone into the compost - there was barely a leaf left after two days of the caterpillars noshing away, but everything else is happier for the good prolonged rain.
I have a couple of drawers with various art supplies, mostly from when the two of us worked in a company that imported and distributed fine-art supplies. From time to time I take a look through to see if there's anything useful, anything to FreeCycle, anything I just want to keep. Tonight I picked out a spare of my second favourite eraser and these three bottles of ink. As the rubber hasn't perished, they can't be too old, and I'll certainly give them a try.  They are still available, in a round bottle and with a different colour of label.
 

  
Taking a photo of them reminded me that I'd taken a picture of a book cover when we were staying in my aunt's in May, and never got round to sizing and posting that.

No publication date inside, but those diamond rings start at £6 and 15 shillings, and until about 5 years ago the company was still in business. My guess is mid to late thirties, given the date the book was first published.

The caterpillars crawled in three by three

The other day I noticed some aphids on the nasturtiums, but I decided not to spray in the the hopes that either birds or ladybirds would get most of them. What I didn't spot were some caterpillar larvae. When I went to water them today (although thankfully we've had good rain since), they were crawling with caterpillars. They can only have hatched the other day, and quite a few seemed to be dead, but the living ones have done quite enough damage, thank-you. I think these will end up prematurely in the compost.

River Life

Yesterday I was so surprised to see some fish in the Liffey - it's the first time I've ever seen them. Today I was early for work so I walked up to the Frank Sherwin bridge at Heuston, and round the bridge piers was positively swarming with fish.
I didn't have a polariser with me, so one photo is enhanced to show how many there were, and one regular photo. Someone in work says they are mullet, and they do come upriver in the summer. He thinks he saw either a seal or an otter just diving in the water out of the corner of his eye, but though he waited almost ten minutes he didn't see anything again. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled! With all those fish I can imagine they'd attract some predators. They were a good size too, at least ten inches to a foot long.

There were also four swans this morning - more than the usual pair. And swallows swooping over the water. It was a good day to be early. The swans were enjoying a tasty snack.

 No sign of the juvenile seagull in the yard at work, so hopefully he was reunited with his parents and is safe somewhere.

A Miscellany

We stopped for what we hoped would be a nice croissant on Saturday morning, knowing that the ones in the airport were not great. The ones in the service café were very nice indeed, but the coffee, alas, was not.
When I saw this ad at the back of the dining area, I couldn't help thinking of Charlene, for ovbious reasons.

This crane thingy was near the airport in Southampton, I just liked the colours and shape.The yellow reminded me so much of the plastic Meccano that we used to have. We had some of the older metal stuff too, but I liked the chunky feel of the plastic one.

We were lucky that it was not too windy on the days we were flying. Sunday was very windy, and yesterday morning there were a lot of twigs and branches down all over. In fact, there was quite a large branch down from a tree at the end of our road, and today the council had cut the whole tree down. I'd got off the bus early to go to the butcher's , and walking back up, there were several showers of cherries squished on the paths. Usually the birds get most of them before they ever get a chance to be blown down.
This big pile of leaves was heaped up along  a bridge yesterday.

Graffiti

The other day C said he thought he'd seen a wren in the garden. This morning I saw a little small bird, but I don't think it was a wren, I am hoping that we do, after all, have a little baby robin around. I'll be keeping a close eye out. This young gull was hopping around in work yesterday (I assume it was the same one - if not, there are two very hapless juveniles around), nearly getting run over. As I was walking up the yard this morning, he was perched on the steps into one of the prefabs. He was there when I left, too - I hope he is alright. He doesn't seem to be able to fly very far, just a few yards and then he lands and starts hopping around. I hope, for his sake, that I don't see him tomorrow.

Big Feet!

Today is C's birthday, so I am just sharing a couple of photos from the park on Saturday. It never ceases to amaze me how big moorhens feet are!  This one almost looks as if it was holding its toes out for a pedicure.

And as we usually just see swans swimming, I'd forgotten quite how big their feet are too.

Quick Pics

We were away in France for a funeral. It was lovely to be in France again, even if very briefly. We met a few acquaintances from our holiday in Brittany at the funeral, which was nice.
When I was helping with the dishes after dinner, I saw the evening light on the roses near the front gate, just as the sun was starting to go down..( When we holidayed here, P always had the lawn immaculately mown. But as he was ill with cancer the last while, it had obviously grown to hay length and someone had just recently mowed it so that it was lying  on the ground- and it was hopping with butterflies earlier in the day.) It was a fabulous sunset! When we arrived in Brest in the morning it was pouring rain, and poor C had to cope with the rain, a rental car and driving on the wrong side of the road, but as we drove inland the weather cleared. I didn't have my camera at the funeral, but it was lovely at the graveside watching all the swallows swooping and flying around after all the little midgey insects that were such a nuisance.

We flew back via Southampton as it was the only way of getting home before Monday. With 3 hours in between flights we went for a walk out of the airport just to stretch our legs and get some fresh air. We were lucky enough to find a lovely park with a miniature steam railway, and 3 small lakes with water sports for kids, fishing, and lots of birds. And we even got back to the airport just in time for C to watch the first half of the Germany v Argentina match before it was time to board.

As well as the swans and moorhens, there were Barnacle Geese, mallards (with chicks much younger than the ones I saw here last week) and grebes.

Canal Walk - Men at Work

One day last week I was coming back from shopping, and I just missed getting through the level crossing before the gates came down. With the engine turned off and the window open, I could hear an unusual noise, but I assumed it was someone mowing a lawn or cutting a hedge, until I saw a pedestrian looking down the canal. I asked her was there something there, and she said yes - it was the first time she'd ever seen a boat. So I hopped out to have a look; it was the maintenance barge that we had seen moored further upstream on on of our longer winter walks. Then a train came through, and I had to hop back into the car, so that was that. But on Saturday we saw it in action, just as we were getting to the point where we'd decided to turn back. It was dredging all the algae growing on the surface - and very happy and cheerful the two guys on board looked, too.
 We caught up with them again when they'd turned at right angles to the bank, to unload all the dredged up stuff onto the back. They cover from the Twelfth Lock at Castleknock all the way up to Kilcock, keeping the canal clear and navigable.

Along the walk we passed sites of two or three small fires. This one looks as if somebody had been celebrating the end of their Leaving Certificate by burning at least one of their books! I wonder had they a special antipathy to English as a subject...

 Wonderful, wonderful rain just when I thought I was going to have to go out and water the garden before bed.

C's work colleague for whom I made the wedding cards asked for a Christening card for her 2 year-old grandson. I don't have any suitable stamps or dies, so this is what I came up with. Just as well she likes it, because I don't know what I would have used it for if she hadn't!

Canal Walk - Flora

Plenty of wildflowers out right now too...