Now that IS a good question!!!

Good Afternoon.

It is Wednesday afternoon.

Mary & and I are OK and we hope you are too.  Sadly there is nothing avian-wise to currently report.

To check if you are operating as normal, below is a puzzle to see if your little grey cells are running OK.

This puzzle came from a cousin of Mary's, which, when it was put on a family group wattsapp produced a number of different answers.

You may put YOUR answer as a comment on this post.

Take care

D

A Rewarding garden bird watch.

Whilst on the one hand I think of next Monday as the end of week 3 of our 12-week virus isolation, it sounds better when you say 25% of the period has passed. On the other hand, 21 days out of 84 doesn’t sound so good! 

As we had 4 days isolation in Lanzarote and came home to go straight into UK confinement mode, I like to think we have done 25 days….it all helps.

I expect like many people, we started off on a positive note thinking how many things we could do to keep us occupied, made a list, added to it, and ticked off those completed. But there is a limit, and we have been so active while keeping occupied, our “to do” list is getting shorter. We long for rain, so that the grass will grow, and we can put “mow grass” back on the list. If the car does not move, then there is no car wash to add either. 

                        Oh blast!!! Sunday pm, strong wind has broken the sun brolly stand… on the list for Monday!

I could do more writing, but as I expect to be telling you next week, there are limits!!

A Mini-Bird survey.

HOWEVER…. I had an enjoyable hour on Saturday morning sitting in the garden with paper, pencil, coffee and bins, doing a census of all avian visitors in 60 minutes.

Every species I anticipated, did appear apart from Great Tit, and the only unexpected was a Feral Pigeon fly-by - I ticked off 7 species.

There was no clear winner, but the most interesting were Blue Tits  Leslie and Lesley (7 sightings), who repeatedly visited nest box No 4, on 3 occasions carrying nesting material, and sometimes they were both in the box at the same time. We are still not clear what stage they are at in the box. In a previous year, when the Blue Tits had youngsters, they were in and out non-stop, but that level of activity is not happening yet, and there is certainly no sign of food carrying.

One Blue Tit had a brief look in Nest box 2, but we are not sure if this is another family or not.

The next regular, also with 7 sightings, were the Blackbirds  Rodney and Cassandra who were just - busy. We suspect that they have more interest in another hedge, which is not very visible. Only saw Cassandra once in the hour.

Woodpigeon Will came 7 times in the hour and became quite predictable. In his last 4 visits, there were 8/9 minutes exactly between each visit, and he would arrive from right to left, low across the lawn, up and over the Lupins, and settle at the base of the feeder. Watching the Dunnocks through binoculars, it was clear that was a fussy eater and very adept at throwing out seed that did not appeal, an- d Will was quite happy to pick up this rejected fare. As I have said before - result = no weeds!

Dunnocks kept busy, interspersed with a bit of singing, but lacked any sign of amorous intentions in the 60 minutes monitoring.

With just 3 minutes left, it was good to see the Robin fly into a hedge, fly away, then come back for a good bath. When he had finished he hopped over the fence, only to come back 30 seconds later to wash the bit he had forgotten!

Very intermittent views of Magpies and carrion Crows completed the survey.

It was interesting, and I’ll do it again next week to see if things have changed.

Finally, if you have any birding experiences savour them …. they are few and far between at the moment!!

QI.  

12^th April was a key date for space travel. In 1961 Yuri Gagarin was the first person to do an orbital space flight, and 20 years later in 1981, the first space shuttle, Columbia, took off.

Next week I will tell you the result of my requested reader census, and in the light of the results, what I intend to do. Please let have your comment if you have not yet done one. YOUR VOTE COUNTS!!!!!

Happy Birding, as good as it can be!

My wonderful garden experiences

HELP….

…no wait a minute, we’ll leave that to later!!!

We’ve all come to the end of week 2 of our 12-week isolation, and I hope you are all as fit as you were at March 5. Mary and I are still cohabiting!!, and whilst we have plenty to do, I think we tend to say there is always tomorrow. I’ve made all the jigsaws I have, not having been sufficiently perceptive to stock up at the beginning of March, especially as I supervise the library sales stock of jigsaw, which currently stands at 45 jigsaws. 

Oh dear. It’s 6.30 on Sunday evening and I’ve just looked out of the study window to see what bird life is around, only to see between the houses a flashing blue light go past. Oh, it’s sad, you only think one thing.

As I’ve read all my fiction books, prompted by the TV programme the other night with Jonathan Ross at Pinewood studios, and where I worked in the film industry for 2 ½  years, I’m re-reading the history of Pinewood.  

Last week was a good start to my garden sightings, but for some reason, some of the cast have deserted me.

Don must have other things on his mind, because whilst he is seen passing through, and taking the occasional swift half from the bird bath, he is not loitering.

Will… he is so predictable, a fast landing by the Lupins and a quick hoovering up of the seeds discarded from the feeder, and he’s off to our neighbours’ roof.

Robin is clearly taking this washing regularly instruction very seriously and takes far more than the stipulated 20 seconds. Thursday, it was a good 3 minutes in the bath, which was great to watch. Not sure if this is due diligence, he’s dirty, or just likes the fresh water I top up daily.

I’m not sure if Blue Tits have an exclusive on the feeder – I know they think that they have sole occupancy of the nest box, but we do get the occasional visit to the feeder from Colin the Coal Tit who is obeying the government stand-off rules, by just going to the feeder hole and taking seed on a take-away basis.

What is for sure is that something IS happening in the main nest box. Les is quite frequently spotted flying across the garden, and straight into the nest hole. I guess he must have an alternative non-vegetarian source of food in a neighbour’s garden. I also saw one having a bit of a battle with his/her better half= one was quietly choosing seed from the feeder and was subjected to a side swipe by the other.

Friday, finally with some relief from my back pain, I was able to do some tidying up of the plant pots.   Rodney dropped in with Cas, but she didn’t stay so he came a bit closer along the fence and we had a few words. I told him “Dave, I’m going to clean up the feeder and top it up with fresh food” (which I did), so I’ll see if he comes back tomorrow. He did.

(I appear to have morphed into the world of fiction.. must be something to do with this self-imposed exile)

To other matters…

QI News         

On this day 5^th April 1997 the Grand National was postponed until the 7^th April 1997  due to a bomb threat.    On 5^th April 2020 it was postponed until who knows due to Corona 

Virus.

By the way, all the supermarkets round here are completely out of sombreros, tequila, pinatas, paella etc. They put it down to Hispanic buying.

I was pleased to have a poem what I wrote (!!) a couple of years ago, published in the Derby Telegraph this week. It was about the patient care by Derby NHS and I had slightly amended it to include a reference to Corona. I’ve had one follow up call.

HELP….Do I have any followers???

It is sad that so many businesses, charities, tourist locations etc are closed because of the virus, and my blog last week would not have existed but for the garden news  (Not much better this week!)

I struggled enough with my monthly blogs for last September> December, but the next  10 weeks are going to be even harder.

As my blog has been running for over 4 years, since December 2015 and with 197 posts, I have never known how many people are still interested and read my missives.

What I would like you to do please, is to put a comment at the end of THIS communication and send it to me, so that  I have my first ever feedback of the number of my followers.

All I want you to do please is to enter in the comment box a pin number made up of the first 2 and last 2 numbers in your full birth date, together with your country of residence.  For Example, mine will be 2639 England.   And that’s all. It tells me nothing about you, but each number that gets posted relates to  one follower.

Please do this whilst it is fresh in your mind. I have in my mind how many followers I want to keep me writing, otherwise the end could be in sight.

You have no excuse not to do it... you have plenty of spare time!!!

I will let you know the total response.

Thanks

Happy birding, if you can!