Another blogging break, but this time due to a family holiday to Northumberland and Little Miss C's first holiday. A lovely trip where we were fortunate enough to have amazing weather for this time of year. The thing that stunned us most though was the autumn colours that we were delighted to see wherever we went. Even the trees along the sides of the A1 were beautiful! Nature's autumn show may not last long, but whilst it did it was stunning. The trip itself provided a lovely opportunity to catch up with my whole family and to spend some precious moments with them. LMC also had her ... read more
RSPB Dungeness
Another of the visits that Mr C and I made whilst away was to the RSPB reserve at Dungeness. This shingle filled reserve almost looks lunar as you approach in the car, but I'm pleased to say that it gave us one of the best days of birdwatching that we've ever had. Mr C's been keeping some good records of what we saw, especially photographic ones, and if you pop over to UK Nature Blog he's included a complete list as well as a couple of posts on specific sightings of the meadow pipet, Great crested grebe and the rarer Slavonian grebe.A quick stop-off at the Rye Harbour ... read more
Big Garden Birdwatch – Part 2
Whilst the physical location for my second stint at the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch wasn't quite as comfortable as my kitchen there did seem to be plenty more birds on display down at the WWA today.Whilst others took part in the main working party activity the bird spotting team managed to see the following: Bullfinch Redwing Great spotted woodpecker Blackbird (2) Collared dove (14) Greenfinch Robin (2) Blue tit (3) Dunnock (3) House sparrow Song thrush (2) Jackdaw (20) Chaffinch (5) Goldfinch (1) Long tailed tit (5) Wood pigeon (6) Great tit (2) Magpie (2) Wren Mallard (6) Coot ... read more
RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch
Quite a nice way to start the day. Cup of tea to hand. Seat looking out over the snow covered garden. Binoculars and bird book ready. Cue lots of birds. Or not, as the case may be. The morning I spent an hour taking part in the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. Compared to when we first moved in here we certainly seem to have attracted more birdlife to the garden. Our results weren't spectacular with eleven different species in total (blackbird, black headed gull, blue tit, carrion crow, coal tit, dunnock, great tit, house sparrow, mapgie, robin and woodpigeon) but I was still more ... read more
Birds, cake, nappies and gardening
It's been one of those weekends where loads seems to have happened if you know what I mean. As it had seemed like such a long time since Mr C and I had had a day out anywhere we planed to make the most of the dry weather and lack of snow and headed up the A1 to the RSPB reserve at Sandy. We've been RSPB members for a while now, but often don't seem to make enough use of our membership and this trip was an attempt to turn that around. I was amazed at how large the reserve site was as it provided several different walking routes around through a mix of heathland, ... read more
Turning my attentions to outdoors
Now that the rain seems to have (temporarily) stopped I've started turning my attentions to the garden. There's lots that we need to do out there, and lots more that Mr C and I want to do if time and energy allows. Top of my list has to be starting off my veg plot. After a really positive start things have slowed right down - I blame some guidance about not doing anything too strenuous whilst pregnant. The reality is that if I don't make a start before C Minor arrives I'll have no real chance. The aim is to get some raised beds on the identified plot and we've even ... read more
Garden help
Look at who came to help me plant the rest of the spring bulbs in the garden this morning. This particular robin always seems to appear when either Mr C or I are out doing anything in the garden. Today, he sat on the fence for a while watching me dig holes for the bulbs. When I'd finished he even decided to inspect things more closely! At times he was only a foot away from me and he didn't seem at all bothered that I was there. Luckily I had the camera to hand, but taking good bird photos with a small point and shoot camera isn't exactly easy. ... read more
A wet weekend
After an incredibly wet Saturday we were woken in the early hours of Sunday morning by yet more rain. Looking out of the bedroom window the wind was raging, the road turned into a river and several rumbles of thunder passing overhead. We therefore headed down to the WWA this afternoon expecting to see some degree of damage from the weather. Luckily we were proved wrong. The butterfly garden seemed to have escaped the worst of the wind, and with only a couple of small exceptions, most of the plans were still standing proud. There weren't that many butterflies to be seen today, but the bees ... read more
Spring has sprung
If you're in the UK and like nature then you should definitely make sure that you watch the new series of Springwatch on BBC 2.I'm completely addicted at the moment, and am also loving the encyclopaedic knowledge of new presenter Chris Packham. The random nature related facts that he keeps throwing into every conversation reminds me so much of Stephen Fry on QI!As someone quite new to bird watching I loved the small segment that Simon King did on tonight's programme on identifying different woodland birds by their song. Fantastic! ... read more
Birds, birds, birds…
We've had quite a quiet Easter weekend, but it seems that we've actually been quite busy looking at birds and making the most of our RSPB membership.On Saturday we headed into the centre of St Albans to Verulam Park where there are currently a large number of herons nesting on the island in the centre of the lake there. We read in the local paper about how the RSPB had set up a viewing facility there for the public to get a better view of the nests and chicks. Unfortunately the day that we went along this didn't seem to be operating. Still, with the binoculars ... read more