Sunday Sevens #66

Since it’s back to normality after blogging everyday in June for The Wildlife Trusts’ 30 Days Wild, I thought I would write a Sunday Sevens.

Friends:

Last weekend my friend from America visited us again. She is a big fan of Riley so David and I decided to take them both on a morning walk to Formby Beach.

Selfie on the beach

David and Sebastian

Then in the afternoon we visited Liverpool’s Cat Cafe.

The Aviary (part 1):

Set and Leaf

In a previous Sunday Sevens from 2017 (found here), you may recall that I wrote about having to separate an aggressive blue-faced parrot finch from the aviary as he attacked another finch.

In April this year, we decided that two years in the prison cage was enough time for the two blue-faced parrot finches, and so we paroled them to be reintegrated into the aviary.

However, this Tuesday David and I came home from work to murder in the aviary! The victim, poor Lady Gouldian, Set.

We found him with all his feathers plucked from his head and close to death. We put him in the hospital cage in the hope that he would pull through but he succumbed from his ordeal not long after. There was no need for an Agatha Christie detective, we already knew who the culprit was: blue-face parrot finch, Leaf who was seen the previous day chasing Set! It looked like he was back to his aggressive ways! Saddened and angry in equal measure we separated both blue-faced parrots from the aviary and now they reside in the prison cage for life! We buried Set under the Californian lilac, he was only two years old.

Book I am reading:

For the past few weeks I have been reading Kate Morton’s The Clockmaker’s Daughter. I am enjoying the narrative and the colourful cast of characters. Have you read this book? If so what did you think?

The Clockmaker’s Daughter

#walk1000miles medal

#walk1000miles:

I hit my #walk1000miles target on 25th June 2019. Since then I have been continuing to clock up my miles in the hope of getting to 2000 miles come the end of the year! My weekly total has been 39, bringing my annual total to 1,073 miles. If you are participating in the challenge, how are you doing?

New Life:

For the first time since I can recall we have not one, but two herring gull nests around our house. They have made nests on nearby chimney stacks. One nest had three chicks, whereas the other only two. On Friday we noticed that the nest with three chicks only had two. On further inspection David found a grim discovery. One of the chicks had fallen (or been thrown) from the nest. He was stranded on a roof and come Saturday morning his body was no longer there. Sad times.

Baking:

This weekend, David made some more cupcakes. He made peanut butter ones and some Victoria sponges for me. Yummy!

Victoria Cupcakes

The Aviary (part 2:)

Nero

On a happier note to end with, on Saturday David and I visited a pet shop in Warrington. We were looking for a mate for Star our star finch but they only sold pairs. So we opted for a male black head/purple chest Lady Gouldian. I named him Nero. He is a beauty! He has been trying to catch the eye of our resident female. I hope he is successful.

That was my week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

Sunday Sevens is devised by Natalie at Threads and Bobbins.

Sunday Sevens #64

It’s Sunday! Time for a quick Sunday Sevens (devised by Natalie at Threads and Bobbins.)

Poorly Pets:
Our new female Lady Gouldinan finch, Rize has been in the hospital cage twice in the two weeks we have had her. The first time we think she took a knock falling from her perch and today she is back in the hospital cage after spending all night on the aviary floor. She is sleeping at the moment but hopefully she will recover. Fingers crossed!

Family Walks: 
Recently we took a three mile family walk with Riley to Port Sunlight River Park.

Port Sunlight River Park

Solo walk with Riley

Riley Walks:
My highlight of the week has been that I was able to complete a solo walk with Riley. He is strong and pulls but with the help of a gentle leader I was able to take him to the local park. After this success Riley and I will be going on many more solo walks in future.

#walk1000miles:
My walking has picked up a little this week, my mileage being 41. Bringing my annual total to 636 miles. If you are participating in the challenge, how are you doing?

Cooking:
As you can tell from this post it’s been a quiet week. For my lunch on Friday I managed to incorporate some cooked puy lentils I had recently purchased. I made a puy lentil and quinoa curried stew. I sweated one chopped white onion, and two cloves of chopped garlic in oil before adding the packet of puy lentils and 50g of uncooked quinoa. I threw in a handful of peas and then tipped in a teaspoon of curry powder, a teaspoon of turmeric and half a teaspoon of chilli powder. Then I poured in 500ml of water with one vegetable stock cube and cooked for 15 minutes. It made for a healthy, tasty meal. Do you like cooking with lentils? If so what’s your favourite recipe?

Puy Lentil with Quinoa Curried Stew

Gardening:
At the weekend, David and I took a trip to Lady Green Garden Centre. I had an empty pot to fill and managed to purchase a polemonium and night scented phlox.

Polemonium

Night Scented Phlox with Artie

Rize and egg

A Happy Note to End With:
An update on Rize. After placing the hospital cage near a radiator (for warmth) and David had massaged her vent, this afternoon Rize laid an egg! The task was long and arduous and Rize at present is resting.

That was my week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine xx

Sunday Sevens #63

It’s Sunday again! Time for a quick Sunday Sevens (devised by Natalie at Threads and Bobbins.)

Earth Hour:
Last night I observed the annual Earth Hour by WWF. For the past seven years I have joined in this world wide movement by turning off my lights between 8.30pm and 9.30pm. Did you take part in the initiative?

Earth Hour 2019

Winter – Ali Smith

Book I’m reading:
I’ve picked up Winter by Ali Smith. Have you read this book? What were your thoughts?

Flowers:
Inspired by the lovely Sharon from Sunshine and Celandines, who shared pictures of wild flowers she had seen on a recent dog walk. I decided to do the same and take some snaps of the flowers I see on my walk to work.

red deadnettle

rapseseed

forget me not

Daisy

Family walks:
This Sunday’s family walk with Riley was a 2.5 mile walk around a spring resplendent Sefton Park.

Eros

Sefton Park

Band Stand

Riley and daffodils

Riley and daffodils

#Walk1000miles:
My miles this week has been 39. Bringing my annual total to 550 miles.

New Friends:
On Tuesday David surprised me with two more friends for the aviary. Helen a female owl finch and Rize a female Lady Gouldian finch. How beautiful are they?

Helen the Owl Finch

Rize the Lady Gouldian Finch

That was my week, how was yours?
Thanks for reading,
Christine xx

Sunday Sevens #62

It’s Sunday! Time for a quick Sunday Sevens!

Aviary:

There’s good and bad news coming from the aviary today. On Thursday David and I welcomed two new friends. Star the star finch and Hero the bengalese finch, both have settled in well.

Star

Hero

R.I.P. Cox

This Sunday, after coming home from a walk, we discovered Cox our female owl finch had passed away. 😦 We hadn’t had her for more than two years. It was a shock!

RSPB Membership: 

On Friday David and I visited yet another RSPB reserve. This time we drove 1.5 hour to RSPB Conwy and spent three hours and four miles walking around the salt marshes and reed beds. We saw several new bird species, among them the curlew and red breasted merganser. We were also very lucky to see the very rare grey phalarope.

In the hide

Curlew

David on the broad walk

Periwinkle

Pony

red breasted merganser

Toads

Grey Phalarope

Family:

This weekend has been all about family. On Saturday we hosted a family meal and get together for birthdays and anniversaries. It was good fun!

Table

Family fun!

Sunday, David and I headed towards Lunt Meadows Nature Reserve. David’s brother, sister-in-law and nephew joined us for a six mile walk, with Riley in tow!

#Walk1000miles:

This week I became a Proclaimer and broke into my first 500 miles! My weekly total is 39 bringing my overall total to 510 miles. Here’s to the next 500!

So, that was my week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

Sunday Sevens is a series devised by Natalie at Threads and Bobbins!

Goodbye 2018…and Hello 2019!

Happy New Year from Christine, David, Artie and Riley! Here’s hoping 2019 is a year full of love, laughter and friendship!

It’s taken a while but below find the annual video sharing the most memorable moments of 2018. Here’s hoping 2019 will just be as wonderful!

I want to thank you all for coming on the journey with us!

Thanks for all your support,

Christine x

Sunday Sevens #56

It’s been ages since I’ve written a Sunday Sevens (devised by Natalie at Threads and bobbins). So as 2018 draws to a close I’ve decided to compile one last Sunday Sevens to top off a wonderful Christmas week.

Christmas:

Carol Service

Christmas Dinner 2018

To get into the festive spirit, Mum and I attended a Carol Service at the local church. While on Christmas Day, David and I played host to our parents for a wonderful Christmas dinner.

Walking the dog:

Over the festive period we managed to get out and about with Riley. I enjoyed the walks as much as Riley and my miles totted up nicely. My final week’s mileage for #walk1000miles is 30.

Music:

Zimmer Vs Williams

On Thursday David and I attended a concert at the Philharmonic Hall. The programme was Zimmer vs Williams and featured music from films such as Star Wars, E.T, The Dark Knight and Pirates of the Caribbean. I enjoyed the concert, David was less enamoured.

Wildlife:

Tree Bumblebee

Today David saved a bee! I think this tree bumblebee had either been disturbed or was an old queen. After research I found that due to warmer winters bumblebees, the tree bumblebee included are choosing to start new nests rather than hibernate. A consequence of global warming? Whatever the reason this tree bumblebee looked in need of assistance. So we gave her sugar/water and left her to rest in the yarden.

Have you seen any bees flying this wintertime?

New Friend: 

Luna

This weekend David and I acquired a new friend for the aviary, a Lady Gouldian Finch we named Luna. How beautiful is he?

So, that was my week, how was yours?

All the best for 2019!

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

12 Hours of Day #10

It is with many thanks to Louise at Ramblings of a Roachling, for informing me of the future dates for #photoanhour on Instagram. I knew there was one planned for when we came back from holidaying in Scotland. So on Saturday 22nd September I logged onto Instagram and noticed other Instagramers posting about #photoanhour. I decided to join in. So here’s what I got up to during my 12 hours of day!

Photo an Hour – 22nd September 2018

8am to 9am:

My Saturday began like any other day, with coffee and granola. However my day could so easily have begun at 6.30am when we were rudely woken up by headbutts from Artie wanting us to get up!!

Cereal at 8am

Shopping at 9am

9am to 10am:

This Saturday we went shopping at Asda for our weekly shop. We haven’t been here for a while, as we have been ordering a delivery online most weeks. It was a shock to the system to be honest! We had become used to our food being delivered every week!

10am to 11am:

Since we missed Artie’s 4th birthday, as we were away in Scotland, we decided to buy him a present of a new scratch post. The other one he had had since he was a kitten and was looking sadly worse for wear!

Artie’s new toy!

Purple Carrot! Liverpool

11am to 12pm:

We took a visit to #purplecarrot for organic Discovery Apples. 😁 As soon as I knew they had them in stock, I was round there at the soonest opportunity! You all know by now my penchant for Discovery Apples! 😀

12pm to 1pm:

We popped in for a visit to David’s family and received cuddles from their Newfoundland Bennie. 😁

Visiting Bennie

Bought finch food at Lister Drive

1pm to 2pm:

On our way home, we stopped off at Lister Drive Fisheries and bought some finch food for our aviary.

2pm to 3pm: 

Lunch was with a cup of tea and sampling the Discovery Apples I had bought from #purplecarrot. I love the cat ornament David’s mum gave us from her recent holiday.

Lunch and gifts

Vacuuming with Henry!

3pm to 4pm:

I had a date with Henry! A quick clean of the house was much needed!

4pm to 5pm:

I took to chopping lots of vegetables, ready to be roasted for the evening’s dinner. 😊 We were making roasted vegetable parcels. Always a hit in our house!

Vegetables to be roasted

The table is set for dinner

5pm to 6pm:

While the vegetables were roasting, I set the table. I like a nice, romantically lit dining room.

6pm to 7pm:

Dinner of scrumptious roasted vegetable parcels with salad was mmm… tasty!😁

Roasted Vegetable Parcels

Catching up on blogging

7pm to 8pm:

I spent the remainder of the evening catching up with composing blog posts.

How did you spend your Saturday?

Thanks to Janey and Louisa for setting up the challenge, and thank you for reading,

Christine x

The Sparrowhawk

Sparrowhawks have featured a few times on my blog. The first was a fleeting visit where I didn’t even have time to pick up my camera. The second visit, last year, was of a male sparrowhawk surveying the area.

The most recent visitation by this enigmatic bird arrived on a dreary August bank holiday Monday. David was just about to do the dishes when he exclaimed, ‘there’s a sparrowhawk on the wall!’

Female Sparrowhawk

For the next half hour or so we both watched on amazed as a female sparrowhawk sat on the wall and devoured her prey, a poor little starling. We had never seen a sparrowhawk with its prey before. It was a bit gruesome and sad for the starling but you have to think with your head and not with your heart on these matters. If there were no small birds for the sparrowhawk to prey upon, then there would be no sparrowhawks either.

Due to their prey being primarily songbirds (they do eat small mammals too), sparrowhawks often come into conflict with birdwatchers. However there is no correlation between a dip in songbirds and predation by sparrowhawks. In the past there have been two studies on the influence of predation and songbird numbers. Both studies noted that there was in fact more of an increase in songbird numbers than an actual negative correlation when predated by sparrowhawks. Sparrowhawks are noted to prey on the old and infirm, creating a survival of the fittest gene pool for songbirds. Sparrowhawks feed mainly on sparrows, tits, finches and starlings, however female sparrowhawks can hunt birds as large as a pigeon. Recent research led me to discover that the sparrowhawk sometimes does not quickly dispatch of it’s prey. Anything bigger than a sparrow will face a lingering death while being eaten, if a vital organ/artery is not punctured. It made for a sobering read.

The sparrowhawk has in the past been subjected to persecution by trophy hunters and in the 1950’s their numbers crashed due to usage of pesticides such as DDT in farming. It was only after DDT was banned and the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981 was passed protecting sparrowhawks, that their numbers increased.

The sparrowhawk is one of the UK’s smallest birds of prey. It is the perfect ambush predator, easily maneuvering in enclosed spaces such as woodland and gardens. However only 1 in 10 hunts result in a meal for the sparrowhawk. Females can be up to 25% larger than males. Sparrowhawks are relatively short lived, their maximum age is around 3 years, but some can live to around seven. They are found all over the UK apart from the Highlands of Scotland. Their eyes change colour with age, starting green and growing more yellow with maturity.

Sparrowhawks are seen as a top predator and their presence indicates that the bird population in an area is healthy. Though it was unpleasant to witness the sparrowhawk with its prey, I was amazed at seeing her in the yarden. Nature after all isn’t sunshine and flowers. I must be doing something right with the feeding of the little birds in order to bring the larger birds to the area.

Have you come close to a sparrowhawk? Seen one with it’s kill? What are your thoughts on UK raptors?

Thanks for reading,

Christine.

---

Further reading:

Some of the web resources I visited while compiling this blog were:

Springwatch.

Discover Wildlife.

British Bird Lovers.

RSPB.

Living with Birds.

Sunday Sevens #42

Thanks to Natalie at Threads and bobbins for creating the series, Sunday Sevens. Here’s a quick update on my week.

Walking the Dog:

I thought I’d begin this week’s post with our run with Riley. It seems like every weekend when we arrive at Sefton Park, it hails on us. Today it was also blowing a gale! Riley didn’t seem to mind though as we followed his path around the park. We had a good 2 mile walk and even spotted parakeets flying from the tree tops.

#walk1000miles:

Tying in neatly with dog walking, is the #walk1000miles challenge. This week I’ve been feeling pretty lazy. Though recently recovering from a chill, I’ve had no excuse to not crank up the miles. However I’ve just felt to tired. I think the coldness of February is filtering into my bones, making me want to hibernate. I keep dreaming of warmer days. They will be here soon. I just need to get through the winter months. My weekly total has been 27 miles, bringing my annual mileage to 196 miles.

A Year in Books:

This week I’ve picked up Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees. I can’t remember who suggested it to me but at present I am enjoying the story and characters. I think this book will be bitter sweet. Have you read this book? What were your thoughts?

The Secret Life of Bees

R.I.P Paris

Aviary:

This week sadly our little aviary has become one less as we found Paris, one of our male owl finches, had passed away. He had been fluffed up for quite some time. I had hoped it was just with the cold, but it must have been with some illness. He was adorable and my love affair with owl finches will continue. I think they are so beautiful.

A New Friend:

Keeping with the avian theme. This week I’ve been trying to gain the trust of a visiting robin. He’s pretty brave and sings softly to me as I hold out the bird food to him. Sadly I’ve not been able to have him eating from my hand but he has been hopping close by. He watches me as I lay the food out and when I turn my back he jumps down and helps himself to the fare. I’ve been enjoying his daily visits. Long may they continue.

Friendly Robin

Shopping

Shopping:

Saturday was all about shopping. David and I headed into Liverpool city centre before driving through the tunnel to Cheshire Oaks, where I managed to get a white fleece from Mountain Warehouse. David was looking for waterproof jackets, this was one of his favourites.

Yarden:

Lowly snowdrop

Iris in the rain

I thought I’d finish this post with an update on the yarden. I have one lowly snowdrop blooming. It looks rather chewed upon but at least it has made a show. I have a few more iris flowering and thought their petals looked nice with raindrops on them.

So, that was my week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

12 Hours of Day #6

Bev from Confuzzledom informed me that the latest #photoanhour challenge was this Saturday 20th January 2018. I decided to join in on Instagram. Though my day was hectic I wouldn’t class it as exciting! Here’s my 12 hours of Day.

Photo an Hour – 20th January 2018

8am to 9am:

My Saturday began at 8am with the alarm clock blaring. I was the first up and with Artie fed, I waited for the kettle to boil for my morning coffee.

Breakfast

Getting dressed

9am to 10am:

I dawdled over breakfast. The morning was cold, grey and raining. It was difficult to motivate myself, but I knew I had to get up as a busy day awaited. I spent fifteen minutes putting on my make-up and getting dressed.

10am to 11am:

First on the agenda was the weekly shop. We spent a good hour in Asda spending lots of money on gym clothes and groceries.

Shopping selfie

David’s car radio

11am to 12pm:

Was spent unpacking groceries, travelling to garages so David could pump up his car tyres and travelling to a spice market that was sadly closed when we got there.

12pm to 1pm:

Arriving later than planned, we took a visit to David’s mum and dad.

Cup of Tea

Flowers

1pm to 2pm:

Home, I managed to arrange the cut flowers I’d bought that morning.

2pm to 3pm:

While having a late lunch, David noticed we had an egg in the aviary. It was a tiny owl finch egg.

Owl Finch egg

Clean bird feeders

3pm to 4pm:

Thankfully the rain stopped long enough for me to spend some time in the yarden. I cleaned the bird feeders of mold.

4pm to 5pm:

After doing some house work, I tried on my new gym clothes!

New gym clothes

Finches enjoying the millet

5pm to 6pm:

After cleaning the aviary, we watched as the finches enjoyed their new French Red Anjou Millet!

6pm to 7pm:

Dinner time. I was starving! We both had pizza for Saturday’s evening meal. David’s was topped with chicken, while I had half a goat’s cheese with spinach pizza. I served it with a heap of salad to make it look healthier. Of course I enjoyed a nice glass of cabernet sauvignon too :p

Dinner

Relaxing

7pm to 8pm:

For the rest of the evening I relaxed with Classic FM and Tom Hanks’ Uncommon Type. David and I also snuggled and watched a film together. It was a nice end to a hectic day.

Thanks to Janey and Louisa for setting up the challenge.

How did you spend your Saturday?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x