Post Furlough Return To Work....

OK, yes I've been a bit absent the last couple of weeks, and with genuine reasons. Normally I pop on on a Wednesday afternoon after my weekly hospital visit, but with the current climate, I'm at work until the hospital appointments resume, and, working has been variable days and times, which means fitting in shopping and other tasks around my work hours, oh and not forgetting the HS2 road closures, narrow lanes etc as they ramp up their work!

So, I'm well, and I hope you're all well?

Any gossip, please tag it here.....

My local reserve I understand has been overwhelmed with visitors, so I've kept away, because in places, social distancing is not practicable. That's nature, not a fault of the reserve, making some paths very narrow. Long term, it doesn't look like things will get much better quickly, especially as a nearby town is experiencing uncontrolled Covid-19 cases, but not deaths, and if Leicester is anything to go by, if a localised lockdown does occur, then i will be impacted.

Lets hope not.

I've not been too busy with the camera, but here's a few, and some interesting rare visitors included....

A large white butterfly enjoying one of the new lavender plants

A peach of a sunrise....

The next two sunrise pics were taken about two mins apart.

A hiding pond lily

And a blooming nice lily

The newly planted erysimum and lavender plants are filling out nicely,

And the big surprise visitors, long tailed tits, of which at one point, we had at least ten on one feeder!

This pic below, there were two just out of the the image, which I didn't see til afterwards.

One cutely waiting its turn...

This one gave up waiting and found another feeder...

And once the feeding frenzy had died off, this one came back....

Take care and stay safe and I'll hopefully catch up with more posts over the weekend.

STOP PRESS!

More LTT's this afternoon!

  • Nice photos - especially the Robin on a very characterful tree
  • Lynn L said:

    Lovely snaps, love the Robin, a favourite of mine, thanks for sharing. I also am unsure about it being Goldfinch Mike, but am no expert. The whole of the front of the bird is tanny/orange, like the male chaffi, maybe it is the light, and the crest? A little bit of wind or a bad a hair day! I am sure others will respond.

    The only reason why I doubted goldie, was the facial markings would have been somewhat distinctive, even in that light.

    I did wonder about male chaffie, but I've yet to see one here in all the years we've lived here, but anything is possible, so it could be, complete with punk hair do......

  • Linda257 said:
    Nice pics Mike. male chaffi for me without his hairspray ..I have a few pics of them with crazy hairdos

    Thank you Linda.

    I'm beginning to think possibly male chaffie, complete with punk hair do....

  • Unknown said:
    Nice photos - especially the Robin on a very characterful tree

    Thanks Nige.

    The robin was at the base of an apple tree, a favourite spot for robins and dunnocks before the feed from the ground.

  • While sorting through pics to upload to Flickr early this morning, I noticed some from last week that I hadn't shared, so here they are.

    A chance shot, midges, still very active here, even though 

    While it wasn't cold (see blue highlighted row), it wasn't warm either, those midges were enjoying the sun and a cool 10.8ºC max temp.....

    Wax Caps

    Autumn leaves

    The Constant Cheer has finally stopped flowering

    Though the erysimum planted earlier this year, is still in flower!

    Stay safe folks.

  • OK, after an interesting week weatherwise, while much of the country seemed to have snow, we had perpetual fine drizzle, you know, that horrible fine stuff that penetrates anything and everything, along with a cold blast!

    However, after a fiery sunrise, yesterday turned out a super day, though it's made up for it today, battleship grey skies and drizzle....

    A forlorn wood pigeon, because nothing was on the feeders dropping food for it to scavanege!

    House sparrows by the dozen, and quite a few taken to balancing on the side of the house....

    Well, this next one just darted past....

    But this one, of many, was on the side of the house....

    and a cropped photo...

    An upside down blue tit!

    that decided it was time to stand the right way up and let the stomach contents settle down....  Laughing

    A bird that needs no intro

    A vicious male blackbird, perched on the fence ready for his next victim, that seems to want to attack anything and everything that goes in to the garden, crows, magpies, you name it, a rottweiler in disguise!

    Hey you, with that thing against your face, is that you making that noise?

    Some of you may recall from last week I was querying a visitor to the garden where the light was at the wrong angle to get a clear colour id. After cropping the photo I decided it was a male chaffie, not just by the plumage, but the beak as well, a typical finch beak.

    Well, among the new visitors to the garden was most definitely a female chaffie

    And she was enjoying a sunflower heart...

    Stay safe everyone

  • I forgot to share this video from the gardencam, of a fox walking past Mrs PR while she was topping up the feeders...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbLtbyl6N4Y

    Stay safe everyone, and I'll catch up with you soon.

  • A good selection of birds from the garden ... and wall! Who was the most surprised, Mrs PR or the fox to find each other??
  • Nice pics Mike..lovely to see Mrs PR up and about... healthy looking fox too!
  • Thank you, Mrs PR is doing well.