Sunday Sevens #68

You all know how much I love updating you all in a Sunday Sevens! I’ve managed to collate enough info this week for a post. Thanks to Natalie at Threads and Bobbins for devising the successful series.

Burton Mere:
Sunday 21st July 2019 was RSPB Burton Mere‘s 40th anniversary pin badge launch. David and I made our way to the reserve on this special occasion to purchase the much anticipated badge. The badge ID was unknown until we arrived. It was a cattle egret! A species that has nested and reared young in previous years. I paid the £2 donation and we enjoyed a few hours walking about the reserve.

Gatekeeper

Common Lizard

Cattle Egret Pin – 40th Anniversary

Doris:
David has been curing pigeons again! This time a female pigeon with a sore eye, who was unable to close her beak. After a few attempts at capture, David managed to catch her and quickly discovered that she had canker, a bacterium that if left untreated can kill pigeons. David has bought tablets to treat this disease so after an overnight stay at Rescue No.49, Doris was released and has been seen frequenting the yarden every day this week. Thanks David for saving another life!

Doris the pigeon

David and Dalmatian Puppy

Doggy Day:
After all the uncertainty recently about David’s job, re: redundancies and reshuffling, an event at David’s work called Puppy Day helped him release the stresses and strains of daily life by spending time with dalmatian puppies.

Gulls:
During recent research I’ve discovered that there is no such thing as a seagull. They are just gulls seen at the seaside! However since their food and habitat is being encroached by humans these gulls are becoming more prevalent inland. The nesting gulls around our home I have learned are two different types. The gull nest to the back of our house is a herring gull and the nest to the front, I have identified as a lesser black-backed gull. On Friday the chick to the back had fallen from the nest (chimney stack) and now cries for food whilst on the roof. The adult tends to this chick so I am not too concerned. 

Watching birds while it rained:
This weekend was a rather damp squib, in more ways than one!! It rained constantly all day Saturday, so I decided to spend a good hour watching the birds visiting the yarden feeders. I saw four species of bird, 7 goldfinches, 5 sparrows, (who are so adventurous and like to explore every corner of the yarden). 13 Starlings and 4 pigeons. I even spotted a poor bedraggled honeybee trying to dodge the raindrops!

View from the window

#walk1000miles:
I’ve forgotten to calculate my miles recently. So when I did add up this week’s mileage, I found that I had walked 35 miles, bringing my annual total to 1,177!

Book I am reading?
Having finished The Heights by Juliet Bell I am left wondering what to read next. Any ideas??

Riley:
I’ve noticed that since Riley has hit the prime age of 10, he has slowed down a lot. He no longer plays for as long as he used too and he stop and starts when going for a long walk. I worry for him. Do you have any tips on looking after an older dog?

So, that was my week, how was yours?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

30 Days Wild 2019 – Day Thirteen.

Day 13: Today is Throw Back Thursday! 2015 was all about pets, while in 2016 I counted bees and celebrated Meat Free Day. During 2017 I looked out for newborns and in 2018 I planned a wild adventure. For this year’s 30 Days Wild, I’ll revisit the #randomactofwildness of looking for newborns.

Already this season fledged blue tits, goldfinches, sparrows and starlings have visited the yarden.

Have you seen any fledged birds this season?

Thanks for reading, and stay wild!

Christine x

A Tale of a Dunnock and a Robin

This spring our yarden has once again been visited by dunnocks and robins. David had the inspired idea of putting my action camera in the ground cage feeder, in the hope of getting some footage of our little feathered friends. The trial was a success and we got some wonderful footage of a visiting dunnock (who seems a little poser) and a flighty robin.

Robin:

Voted the UK’s National bird in 2015, and featured at number 7 in the RSPB’s Big Garden Birdwatch 2017. The robin is recognised by many due to their red breast. Their sweet song can be heard all year round, not just in the spring. Both sexes look alike but their young are speckled brown. However cute they look they are very territorial and can fight to the death!

They are of similar size and have the same diet as the dunnock, hence chasing dunnocks from gardens.

Dunnock:

I have to admit, the dunnock is one of my favourite birds. This small, quiet bird flickers about the undergrowth snatching at insects. The male’s short, yet cheery song is mostly heard of a spring but I have heard them singing come Christmastime. They are, like the robin, a ground feeder, eating insects and berries. They will eat seeds and suet come winter. Their nests are often parasitised by the cuckoo. They have colourful sex lives, most are polyandrous (one female to a number of males) or polygynous (one male to a number of females). This ensures that more than one mate will tend to the young.

I have been bowled over by how good the footage of the dunnock and the robin is. It is definitely a technique we will attempt again, perhaps on the hanging feeders!

Which garden bird is your favourite?

Thanks for stopping by,

Christine x

Dodd Wood

With the British weather still not warming up for skins swimming (well for me at least). I forsook a swim and headed instead for a walk with David to Dodd Wood.

View from Dodd

Dodd Wood, managed by the Forestry Commission, is a fell that overlooks Bassenthwaite Lake. It is part of the Skiddaw range and has an elevation of 502m. It is 50m higher than Catbells and without the scramble to the top!

After an early start, we arrived at the pay and display car park at 10am and promptly paid the £6.30 for all day parking. There is a cafe and toilets on site, and the forest was already busy with walkers and families.

To start our walk, we headed for the lower Osprey viewpoint. Since 2001, Ospreys have been breeding in the area, after travelling from Africa.

Lower Osprey Viewpoint

There are two viewpoints at Dodd Wood both equipped with long range telescopes and friendly volunteers. There is also an online webcam where you can view life in an Osprey nest. At the time of visiting the female was incubating three eggs. We didn’t see either Osprey. At the lower viewpoint there are feeding stations for woodland birds such as Jays and Coal Tits. There are even visiting Red Squirrels but when we were there they never showed.

Woodland Bird Feast

From the second viewpoint David and I walked through an overgrown path that joined up with the way-marked (in green) Dodd Summit route. We took our lunch overlooking Derwentwater before heading up to the summit.

Viewpoint selfie

The summit had fantastic views overlooking Derwentwater, Bassenthwaite Lake, Skiddaw and towards The Solway Firth, though it was a bit cold and windy on this cloudy April day!

Derwentwater from Dodd

Bassenthwaite Lake from dodd

Blown Away

On our way back down towards the car park, we walked along a woodland path with grassy embankments. From one such embankment came the chirrup of birds. At first glance we couldn’t see anything, but then David lifted his camera and pointed to a small round hole in among the moss. There were three open mouths awaiting their parent.

Nestlings by David Evans

We walked a total of 4 miles, but it sure felt longer! After a coffee, we headed back on the road towards home. We’d had a tiring yet enjoyable day!

Have you visited Dodd Wood? What are your favourite woodlands in the UK?

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

Remeniscing

Last night while relaxing, snugly before bed, with Classic FM playing on the air and the lights turned down low, an image from my childhood played before my minds eye. I lay thinking of when I was a child, no older than ten years old. I used to love dancing, to throw my arms and legs wildly around to the music, in no planned coordination. I used to whirl around my bedroom for hours, in my favourite red leotard stitched with gold tinsel. As gloaming approached, I whizzed my preadolescent body around the floor. I danced to (if you can believe it) my mum’s old 33 1/3 RPM’s, called The World of your 100 Best Tunes, which originated from a BBC radio programme. The LP’s featured Beethoven’s 6th Symphony and Ronald Binge’s Elizabethan Serenade, (a piece of music that always sends me reminiscing when I hear it on the radio). Among others was Holst’s The Planets. My favourite of all the pieces is Uranus, The Magician, (it’s not played half as much as it should be!) The music is so theatrical! To my child’s mind the music imagined a fantastical parade of skeletons and wild beasts, overseen by a master who wore top hat and tails!

While thinking of this happy memory, lines from a poem by Ted Hughes, part of his award winning Birthday Letters, popped into my thoughts. The poems all address his marriage to his first wife and fellow poet Sylvia Plath. The poem in question is called: God Help the Wolf After Whom the Dogs Do Not Bark. I think it was the image of my younger self dancing and tinsel adorning my clothes that brought the lines of the poem to my mind.

‘You danced on in the dark house, Eight years old, in your tinsel. Searching for yourself, in the dark, as you danced… Then dancing wilder in the darkness…’

‘Nobody wanted your dance, Nobody wanted your strange glitter –‘

With Hypnos caressing my eyes and Morpheus awaiting to lace my sleep with dreams, I decided to dig out the poem the next day, re-listen to Holst’s The Magician and write a post bringing them both together. Which I hope I have succeeded.

Thanks for reading,

Christine x

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God Help the Wolf After Whom the Dogs Do Not Bark

By Ted Hughes.

There you met it – the mystery of hatred.
After your billions of years in anonymous matter
That was where you were found – and promptly hated.
You tried your utmost to reach and touch those people
With gifts of yourself –
Just like your first words as a toddler
When you rushed at every visitor to the house
Clasping their legs and crying: ‘I love you! I love you!’
Just as you had danced for your father
In his home of anger – gifts of your life
To sweeten his slow death and mix yourself in it
Where he lay propped on the couch,
To sugar the bitterness of his raging death.

You searched for yourself to go on giving it
As if after the nightfall of his going
You danced on in the dark house,
Eight years old, in your tinsel.

Searching for yourself, in the dark, as you danced,
Floundering a little, crying softly,
Like somebody searching for somebody drowning
In dark water
Listening for them – in panic at losing
Those listening seconds from your searching –
Then dancing wilder in the darkness.

The colleges lifted their heads. It did seem
You disturbed something just perfected
That they were holding carefully, all of a piece,
Till the glue dried. And as if
Reporting some felony to the police
They let you know that you were not John Donne.
You no longer care. Did you save their names?
But then they let you know, day by day,
Their contempt for everything you attempted,
Took pains to inject their bile, as for your health,
Into your morning coffee. Even signed
Their homeopathic letters,
Envelopes full of carefully broken glass
To lodge behind your eyes so you would see

Nobody wanted your dance,
Nobody wanted your strange glitter – your floundering
Drowning life and your effort to save yourself,
Treading water, dancing the dark turmoil,
Looking for something to give –
Whatever you found
They bombarded with splinters,
Derision, mud – the mystery of that hatred.

© 1998

International Red Panda Day 2013!

21st September 2013 was The Red Panda Network’s: International Red Panda Day.

I knew The Welsh Mountain Zoo was celebrating the event so I managed to get David to agree and on Saturday, early morning we headed for north Wales and the A55. The one and a half hours travel from Liverpool passed by quickly as a warm Autumnal sun shone down upon us and the green of the Welsh hills seemed all the more greener!

We arrived at the zoo at 10am and subsequently made our way to the Red Panda enclosure, their enclosure at present is only temporary as a new one is being built for them. I was glad to hear this as the cage was small and the fence was difficult for my camera to focus through. However, Ming Ming as usual was running around the enclosure, open mouth panting. His female companion was asleep in a nest box at the top of the cage.

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In celebration of International Red Panda day, David donned on a panda onesie and posed in front of the Red’s enclosure! He did get a few strange looks from the other zoo guests!

Back to the Red Pandas and after taking an abundant video and camera footage of them, David exclaimed, ‘there’s three of them! There’s a baby!’ Needless to say I was all excited! The three month cub kept poking it’s head out of the nest and looking at the world outside. It won’t be long before he/she will be brave enough to venture out itself.

On our second visit to the Red Panda enclosure after taking in the Penguin Parade, David remarked that there was not just one baby but two! Two cubs for Ming Ming! I was overjoyed! We stayed for the 2pm panda talk and even had a nice chat to their keeper.

The 2013 International Red Panda day turned out to be very enjoyable. Wales was bathed in a glorious late rush from Summer, the Red Pandas were energetic (unlike most Red’s just asleep in a tree all day), and then there was the addition of the two cubs! I came away from the zoo still in love with Red Pandas as I ever was. They are definitely a species worth fighting for!