I have neglected my poor blog over the winter. Now the New Year is here I feel more inspired to write again. I am hoping to be allowed back in the wood in February which will inspire me even more!
I have some new additions in the garden. 10 white doves living in a dovecote at the bottom of the garden. At the moment they are netted but after 6 weeks they can fly free and hopefully will not fly free back to Happisburgh where they came from! Hopefully they will stay because they are starting to pair up and one pair are already building a nest. Just think ugly little dove babies in the garden. I adore dove and pidgie babies, they are the cutest ugliest thing you ever saw and so demanding. When we have them at The Haven they go nuts every time you go near them, asking for food. If you put your hand into the cage they peck between your fingers looking for food even if they have just been fed. You have to love them.
There are signs of spring everywhere now. It's so nice to think that the darkness of Mother Nature's rest time will soon be over. Some days it has barely seemed to get daylight. The birds are starting to sing again, all you can hear outside are Great Tit's going 'Teacher, teacher, teacher'. The bulbs I planted last Autumn with the Grandkids are starting to come up. I am really pleased because I planted about 200 but was prepared for none to come up because they were only cheapie ones from Wilkinson's. Plus I suspect the kids planted half of them the wrong way up! But I can see Crocus shoots under the Laurel tree and along the edge of the back garden so some must be doing OK. I also managed to get my first nettle sting of the year while clearing soggy fallen leaves from around the shoots so the nettles must be coming up again too!
I noticed a Blue Tit checking out one of the nestboxes my late father made. If they only nest in one box I hope it's in one of his two. He used to make them for the local RSPB group to sell at meetings to raise funds. Actually he used to make them for everyone, he must have made hundreds in his time. I often wonder how many are still around. He will have been gone 20 years in June but to think that his beloved birds might still be nesting in some of his boxes is a nice legacy. I have several boxes out now, including my posh one that my friend Gill gave me last year which became home to the Hornets for a short while last summer and a couple of new ones that Hairy Hubby has made recently...and put up, that's a shock!
I had a new garden tick today. Typically not spotted initially by me. I swear that Hairy Hubby is a secret birder, he often spots things out in the garden. As I was in the study at the time I viewed the bird through my late father's binoculars which I keep on the window ledge for such emergencies. My own bins live on the kitchen window ledge and seem to smell permanently of sausages because the Hairy one cooks so many for sausage sarnies. Anyway, I digress. It was nice to see a new bird through Dad's bins. Not nice in a visual way because they are crap but nice in a sentimental way. Maybe he looks down and sees through them with me occasionally. Anyway it was a fine male bird with a neat black cap and glowing breast. He had flown off showing me his white rump by the time Hairy Hubby brought my own bins in for me to look through but I didn't really mind, I was just glad to have known he had visited us.
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