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Tits like coconuts. The bird thread!
Saw three birds of prey sitting on fence posts on the way back from Porthcawl. No idea what sort they were. Dave missed seeing them as he was driving on a twisty road.
Post hawks. That's what we call them anyway.
Ha! As shall I from now on! Brilliant, Lynne!
You can see post crows sometimes. They pretend to be little hawks.
Crows give me the willies. I blame Stephen King for that.
They do seem to look at you in a sinister way don't they, very cleaver birds though.
There was a jackdaw on one of our birdtables this morning, stuffing its beak with the little cubes of left-over bread that Himself had lovingly carved. As one bit went in, another fell out the other side. Didn't stop him carrying on stuffing!
Anita wrote: "They do seem to look at you in a sinister way don't they, very cleaver birds though."Yes, the wee cleavers they carry put me off too. ;)
We have a lot of jackdaws they nest in next doors chimney. Anyway we've seen the jacks fly off with whole fat balls in those green plastic holders and drop them down their chimney. God help if they ever have a real fire. We light our fire regularly in our only open chinmney. Cooks the rooks as he put it.
I love a real fire. In someone else's home. Too much work for my liking.Basically the same feeling I have about children. :D
I love Jackdaws ! I've just put a photo on the group of one of the family that visit our feeders regularly, also one of the pair of Grey Wagtails who come a couple of times a day. A real fire is wonderful! Sadly we can't have one in the lounge only the dining room so we go without but I love being in front of one on those chilly, windy days.
OH is such a pessimist. He worries about power outages so we've got wood burner in the sitting room and and open fire place in the dining room. Plus a few electric fans/fires and gas CH. A real belt and braces job. Same in France. We've just heard from the neighbours they are cutting that bloody pine tree back tomorrow. So long as it doesn't come through the roof, the sap makes a dreadful mess and as I've seen them working before I'm glad I'm not there.
A real fire plus an oil fired rayburn cooker is our main form of heating downstairs. Very old farm house so no central heatingA couple of night storage heaters upstairs to ensure place doesn't freeze
I think I'd enjoy that for maybe one weekend, Jim. In the summertime.Living in Africa for a decade has made me soft.
The four days my mum was here over Christmas we regularly reached temperatures of 21 degrees! She feels the cold so we had the heating on full blast - and the stove in the sitting room. I was near into a wee greasy spot. (Usually our room temp is around 18 and that's where I'm comfortable.)
I'd be huddled in a corner complaining my nipples hurt.
Patti (baconater) wrote: "I think I'd enjoy that for maybe one weekend, Jim. In the summertime.Living in Africa for a decade has made me soft."
I've never lived in a house with central heating
Yep, quite aware you live in the 19th century. :D
Jim wrote: "Patti (baconater) wrote: "I think I'd enjoy that for maybe one weekend, Jim. In the summertime.Living in Africa for a decade has made me soft."
I've never lived in a house with central heating"
I've lived in a house without it and remember freezing when needing the outside loo in the middle of a cold Winter's night!!
You lived in one of those places like what they got in St Fagin's eh Flo?I do enjoy St Fagin's.
My Aunty lived in one of the prefabs... I loved it! St Fagan's is one of my most favourite places, especially the prefabs decorated in the styles of the various decades. Most of the stuff in them we've had.... or very similar!
We looked at a holiday cottage last week that was even smaller than the pre-fab there. Made of pretty much the same materials, too. We decided to not buy it.
Was it at Lavernock? Some of the ones there are pretty similar!
Yep, t'was.I had a terrible allergic reaction about an hour after we looked at it. It must have been seething with mold.
I lived in a Victorian terrace in Nottingham as a child. No CH, no bathroom. Outside toilet, but thankfully not in a block in the middle of a yard. My grandmothers house was a one up one down, no electricity, gas lighting, coal fire tiny scullery, outside the tub and the mangle and a shared yard with a toilet block, but everyone had their own key and locked up toilet. That meant as a kid you had to have a taller person to unlock the door.
The most amazing thing about it was my granddad was a talented organist and played the chapel organ. When they changed it he had the old one at home. They cut holes in the living room ceiling to accommodate the pipes.
The wren was on the bird table again this morning. Unless I'm on the wrong thread?
Sorry sorry, me bird brain. Xxx
Patti (baconater) wrote: "Yep, quite aware you live in the 19th century. :D"yep, things were better then, at least the likes of Justin Bieber would have been sent up chimneys to keep them clean
Jim wrote: "Patti (baconater) wrote: "Yep, quite aware you live in the 19th century. :D"yep, things were better then, at least the likes of Justin Bieber would have been sent up chimneys to keep them clean"
He probably wouldn't even do a good job of it...
Out in my sister's garden this morning, helping to prune the wilderness. It didn't deter the birds from visiting. We even had a visit from a red kite, which flew over so low that I could count it's feathers.
Wow Janet, lucky you ! They are my very favourite bird and see quite a few when we are in Knaresborough, last spring I had 6 in the sky at once, what a treat it was.Taking Evie to see the big starling murmuration in Derbyshire later today, we are both so excited, just hope it stays dry for us.
Kath wrote: "The wren was on the bird table again this morning. Unless I'm on the wrong thread?"Don't think I've had one on my feeders Kath, we have a lot in the woods of course and when we leave feed on top of the acorn( the name for a funny looking seat that's up there) they do come to that, usually they nip in and out between the Nuthatches, there are a lot of nuthatches so they have to be quick
I was hoping for a woods walk today but it's raining. I'd like to see the green parakeets in the nature reserve near us.
Bet they are lovely to see Patti, I've never seen one in the wild, we don't get them this far north.
There is a red kite hovering around at the moment. We are having a big garden tidy day ~ my sister's new garden is very overgrown as the house has been empty for a few years and it was a person in their nineties that lived here before that. We've taken one car and trailer load of garden waste from yesterday and walked the dogs so far this morning. My nephew and nephew in law are busy cutting down things at the moment, and the trailer was already refilled when we got back from he dog walk.But the small birds are still busily to and fro from the bird feeders
I used to see red kites daily when my daughter lived in Llanstadwell. There's a ravine running down to the estuary and there nut have been quite a few to see them every time I went. Beautiful birds. I saw a lovely flight of ducks on Christmas Eve I wondered if someone fancied duck for Christmas and was shooting. I've not seen so many flying ever.
We had a bullfinch in the garden this morning. It didn't visit the feeders but filled itself up with seeds from the betony plants and berries from the Leicesteria formosa - called pheasant berry round here.
Hoped to see a bittern on our walk but no joy. Spoke to a bloke who captured a lovely photo of one last week. You'd have loved his camera, Anita. Dave had lens envy.Lots of robins, blue tits and coal tits and shed loads of ducks and swans.
Plenty of chubby squirrels, too.
We had a pair of bullfinches in the garden a few days ago, and very handsome they were too. Only I know we won't be quite so pleased to see them in the spring - they had our plums last year
Oh and I'm amazed by how green the woods here are in the depth of winter. Not much green in the woods back home this time of year. Even the evergreens go sort of grey.
That's our lovely Wales for you ;-)
There are some fantastic cameras out there Patti, like Dave I often get lens envy, I'm just looking into a 500/600 mm lens and then I will have all that I need. Bitterns are difficult to see, we have them at Old Moor and I've seen them a few times, never got a photo sadly. We've also had several visits of a litter Bittern and I've have spent hours hoping to get a glimpse of it but again failed, maybe one day.
I love Bullfinches Karen, they are near the top of Evie's list too, she always looks for them first. We watched a couple of pairs during the breeding season in the woods this year, I just love the way the male looks out for his lady
When we were on our walk, Dave was telling me about how territorial your robins are here. Then one flew down and pecked a tit right on the top of the head, poor thing.Canadian robins are nothing like robins here. I'm surprised they share a name.
The neighbours have stopped putting bread out. Glad I gave them the seed. We're getting lots of hedge sparrows now.
Much nicer than big dirty gulls.
At this time of year there are a lot of Scandinavian robins here, which causes a lot of territorial disputes. Immigration problems!
That doesn't look much like the bird we call a robin, but it looks very like the bird we call a redstart.https://www.rspb.org.uk/birds-and-wil...
Apparently North American robins are thrushes.http://www.metafilter.com/147552/When...
Who'd a thunk it?
Had our wren on the bird table again this morning. Impossibly small and improbably loud!Robins will fight to the death over territorial rights. I remember Himself's aunty asking if he knew why there was a dead, bloody and partially dismembered robin hear her conservatory and what could have caused it. When he said another robin, she refused to believe it. She had rather a Beatrix Potter view of nature - no red in tooth and claw (and beak) for her!
We have a continental blackbird which dices with death on our home-reared blackbird's favourite birdtable. Such a pagga when they both land at once!
The vision of an English cottage garden as a place of peace and tranquility is so far from the truth. It's a war zone out there, Savage, but endlessly fascinating.
Very quiet bird wise in woods this morning, yesterday we had 3 owls hooting for ages, today one and he only made one pathetic little hoot, guess they were all snuggled up in the cold. Our pond was iced over this morning, the fish look happy swimming round under the ice