Tuesday 28 April 2020

Natural history

My youngest is a great fan of animals and natural history documentaries. Sadly I have hay fever and am allergic to cats and dogs which make my eyes run and I sneeze awfully. I did grow very fond of her guinea pigs and enjoyed the way they squealed when hearing my tread on the path when returning home with a wee treat for them often in the form of dandelions. I do really enjoy the garden birds here and have done so for years and years. With quieter streets their singing is an utter joy.
 I am really enjoying the blue tits and their use of the nesting box this year. They have had tussles with a large solitary bee that seems to have an eye on the same place as they do. In fact the bee and blue tits have jostled in mid air a couple of times. I never read natural history books but have been fascinated by this book below which I picked up second hand this year to tell me a little more. It has been an excellent purchase and really enhanced my appreciation of the blue and great tits in the garden.
On other matters now. I have put some different figures on the painting table as I felt in need of a change, more on this later. Secondly as I hand weeded for much of the morning yesterday I hatched a plan for part of the garden. As holidays are out for the foreseeable future I am planning an outdoor distraction for the top/bottom corner of the garden. Early days yet but enjoying thinking about it. More news on this in the coming weeks.

8 comments:

  1. Sounds like you need to scratch make a solitary bee hotel to solve your housing crisis?

    Advanced guess - are you planning a John Ruddle Wargames model village? Garden railway? Can you further Confuse the nesters by building it out of nest Boxes? https://manoftinblog.wordpress.com/2017/06/09/inspired-by-bob-corderys-dayglo-castle/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We have a bee hotel already but I need to look into one for bigger bumblebees. As for the other matter more info soon.

      Delete
  2. It has been a great year for wildlife so far. Perhaps it's the drop in pollution? I've been taking Cetrine for my hay fever - it helps and doesn't make you sleepy.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I use beconase which has served me well this year. How’s home working going?

      Delete
    2. I'm actually spending half days in the office now as I have some work that's deemed "essential" which allows me to be there. Home-working is not great; far too many distractions!!

      Delete
  3. Hi Alan- sounds very interesting with what you get up to in the great outdoors and in your garden. I like to see our Native birds free on the wing- strange in all these past forty years I've only ever seen one solitary OWL on our Cloths Line- just one. Cheers. KEV.

    ReplyDelete
  4. An owl, that’s cool. There are so many more birds of prey around than when I was a boy. I really enjoy seeing them when out and about further afield. Had one in the garden a couple of times, beautiful.

    ReplyDelete