Hobbies and Crafts

Lesley if you do any mosaic, your thoughts will be welcome on the craft thread. Jude used to do mosaic, she still might do. :-)

Back from Suffolk :-D..We had a lovely time even if it was a tad on the chilly and damp side.We were so lucky that the heavy rain happened during the nights so we were able to get out and about no problem.
How sad to see so many hundreds of uprooted trees though .I really hadn't realised Suffolk had been so badly affected.Aldo the water on the roads.Several times we had to drive through so me deepish 'pools' and the water washed over the windscreen :-S
We did get to Minsmere Nature Reserve but didn't stay long as it was so cold and started to rain ,but we sat in this Hide (I felt like a proper bird watcher LOL) and saw Marsh Harriers,a Bittern,Sparrow Hawk ,and flying over were some kind of Geese and Ducks.Walking through the woods there were plenty of very busy Squirrels .One in particular was huge and had the biggest bushiest tail.

It's good to see my little friends are still here.The feeder is as busy as ever.But I am missing a big whole suet filled coconut !!!.The string is still on the branch but the coconut is nowhere to be seen :-S :-S.Something has carried it off :-| :-|

It is a filthy morning here and I think there was even a few bits of snow earlier.

I came home from Minsmere with a couple of HUGE bags of those Suet Pellets :-D

photo of your pigs in muck on the photo blog Jane.

Glad you enjoyed the break, pity the weather wasn't kinder to you but at least you got away. Good to see all the birds from the hide.

Ann the Pigs were so funny.Especially all the little piglets.I couldn't get a decent pic of them though .There was one field where all the Big Pigs were asleep in their corrugated shelters.All snouts pointing outwards ,and all the shelters in a row.But again I couldn't get a good enough close up .
I have brought home some wonderful Bacon and Sausages .(but don't like to think of those piggies lol)

My son saw a (I will say this very quietly so Kandj) doesn't hear) a RAT on our patio last night :-S.I don't think it was anything to do with the window feeder.More likely the big fat filled coconut that was brought down .Maybe some of the suet had come out of it and it had sniffed it out.
I still haven't found that coconut !!!!!!!.It must have been pretty heavy for the Squirrel or whatever has taken it :-S

Maybe the rat took it Jane.

I do like pigs but not the smell

I like to think it was the Squirrel Ann :-D. As for those pigs .....WHIFFY !!!!!..I put the car window up pretty swiftly :-D.It's such a strong smell :-S
I am going to have a look around the bottom of the garden tomorrow just to see if I can see the coconut anywhere.

I have never attempted mosaic before Ann and I really haven't got a clue what I will be letting myself in for so you'll probably see me on the craft thread asking for help :-D

So pleased to hear you had a good time in Suffolk, Jane were did you see the pigs was it Blythburgh? Only asking as just before Christmas this story was on our local news as well as in newspapers, the pictures are quite upsetting. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2517735/Rustlers-shoot-6-pigs-crossbows-Blythburgh-Suffolk.html

We live in a rural area and every year about November the rats come off the fields looking for food and shelter, with this year being so mild and wet we seem to have far more than usual, I'm not saying I like the long hard winters, I don't but they do help control vermin.

Lesley x

Lesley ,yes they were the Blythburgh Pigs.I won't watch that clip because it sounds like it would be too upsetting to see .Did these people just kill the Pigs with the cross bows and leave them?.I daren't say here what I would wish to do to those who were responsible ! I would be banned from GR !!!
Haven't seen any sign of Ratty today :-D

This morning I watched two collard doves walking on the ridge tiles of our neighbours bungalows. The one in front walked slowly and kept stopping and turning her/his? head around to watch the following dove who obviously had hurt his leg because he limped and kept falling forward on to his chest and then became upright and limped along and fell forward again and again. Poor bird.
It was a real struggle to walk, and how sweet to watch the dove in front keep stopping and turning around. I watched for quite a while and then the postman knocked on our door with a parcel and when I got back to the window both doves had flown away.

I hope the injuries to the dove weren't to serious kandj:-(

Two pigs were taken Jane :-( the injured ones were treated with penicillin and should all be fine :-D

Lesley x

Nice to have you back safe and sound Jane but you didn't whisper quietly enough and I shuddered with the RAT tale........... and Lesley too using the "R" word too.
I hope I won't have nightmares now...... just don't like mice and rats are much worse!!

I am sure all of you are right about the birds having to get used to food being around our house. I expect they will come in time. Trouble is I am too impatient. I want it to be like our old house where I wasted hours watching the woodpeckers and jays and all the small birds.

Strangely I have a bit of a bird phobia. I can't bear them flapping around me or touch one but I do love to watch them in the garden. There was one occasion when a bird flew into one of our window panes and was concussed or injured. I couldn't pick it up but I couldn't leave it to be tormented by the cats either, so I stood guard over it till OH arrived home a long while later.

Anyway, we spent most of yesterday going round garden centres, diy shops, pet shops etc. to find some suitable hanging feeders. There are trees close by but the only ones in our garden are a couple of small witch hazels that we brought with us from the old place. Eventually in a garden centre about 30 miles away I found a good "feeding station". On a sort of pole but big enough to have 3 hanging seed feeders, a mesh feeder, a hanging contraption for suet cakes, hooks for fat balls and a good sized water container. All I've got to do is set it up, cross my fingers and wait.

Wish me luck

Vera, you have had lots of handy tips from Ann and Lesley but my contribution is that from my own experience you do need to be very very patient........ we are still waiting for the birds to use our window feeder several weeks since I put it in place.

Like you I also don't like the birds flapping around my head and wouldn't be able to touch one either. The others know that I admit to being a real wuss and now you are in on this info too lol.

Your feed station sounds interesting, my neighbour has one similar and the birds do use it regularly but roughly at set times which is very strange, but true!

So I wish you good luck and really hope that you soon will have a variety of birds to amuse you.

No sign of the lame dove this morning or his protective mate, but it has been raining very hard since around 7am and there are only lots of starlings that have come and eaten all the food on the ground tray plus our regular Mr and Mrs Blackbird (no sign of the new young blackbird though), oh and the thrush that shares the thick shrubbery with the blackbirds.

Kandj at least you see a thrush, we rarely see one in this garden.

Vera, that feeding station sounds a good one, should be able to put a variety of food out and hopefully eventually the birds will come. A good time will be when they start to nest, they usually feed well then.
Stay with us and keep us in the picture. :-)

Kandj,I'm wondering if your Doves might be doing the 'mating' performance.Our Wood Pidgeons do the bending down on to the chest (with bottom in the air) .It is quite an act :-D and sometimes it does look like one might be limping !Ours perform on the top of the trellis fence ,and that is quite a balancing act .

Vera ,we often have birds fly into our windows .I dread it when I hear the thump and always get OH or my son to go and see if there is a little body lying on the patio.I don't mind picking up a dead bird .I always pick them up by their feet for some reason .
I hope once you get your feeding station up that you will get plenty of visitors.

Lesley ,I had a dream last night and I had 2 pigs!!!....I was feeding them Ham :-S :-S
They were my pets !!! :-S

I had intended to set my feeding station up this afternoon but before I could get outside the wind was getting up and it was pouring again. But OH was outside earlier when there was still a bit of sun and he saw 2 goldfinches fly in to a neighbouring garden so at least I know there are some birds around. All I've seen in our garden in four months is one robin, two pigeons and a blackbird. I'm feeling a lot more optimistic now.

Your feeding station sounds ideal Vera. Good Luck.

I think the jay is a beautiful bird to look at and I love the colour blue of their wing feathers but if I catch sight of them in my garden in spring or summer I shoo them off I don't want them taking my nestlings :-|

Lesley x

Never knew the mating ritual of the doves Jane, that is interesting. So perhaps my "lame" dove wasn't really lame and just doing a bit of courting..... now that is an
old-fashioned word (perhaps because I am old-fashioned too ha ha).

This morning hubby and I were sat in the lounge and we both were startled by a thud on the front window. We looked up to see the young blackbird balancing on the roof of the window feeder and then he flew away. Now we are wondering if he has spotted the food and not quite worked out where to land or was he being shooed away by our our regular Mrs Blackbird like last week and has flown into the windowpane in haste? Hmmmm, I have just put down a trail of suet pellets in the hope of encouraging the bird to come and dine.......... watch this space!!

I know what you mean about shooing the jays away Lesley. We used to have problems with the magpies as well.

My favourites to watch were the green woodpeckers. They are such beautiful colours and they would come up close to the house to peck the insects out of the lawn. Then something would startle them and they would fly off with a real ear-splitting screech.

I also loved the long-tailed tits. They never stayed for long but would arrive in a little flock and flutter about twittering for about half an hour and then disappear again.

I am sure you can understand why I miss my old garden, even though we are very happy in this house.

Vera it is hard to leave a loved garden behind, especially as you had so many varieities of birds. But I hope as you get your new little garden established and whoo some birds into it that you will be able to enjoy your new garden without the stress of a larger patch.

Kandj, all pigeons and doves do that mating 'dance' We sit and watch them im Tenerife where there are a lot of pigeons. The males does the ducking up and down and then does a twhirl in front of the female who usually runs off so he chases her and repeats the performance.