Hungry birds
- They might even be angry birds...
We've had to cut a lot of the hedges to enable to the new fence to be installed and thus we've lost a lot of cover and perhaps more importantly the hips, haws and berries. So the morning routine is: lights, computers, kettle and fill the bird feeders. They're munching through quite a lot and it's not entirely down to the reduction in hedging plants. BTO have announced today the North Yorkshire gardens have more Tawny owls and tree sparrows than in any other county - well, we're blessed with both. The owls visit regularly and often be seen during the day snoozing on the telephone wires under the eaves, especially in wet weather. the tree sparrows were occasional visitors for a couple of years but this year they've been regularly helping themselves out of the feeders and even brought their brood to show them how it's done and now they visit too - wonderful. Read the report from the BTO here.
We had a slight frost overnight on Thursday, glorious star spotting and a full moon but the frost has knocked the last of the last of the heather bloom and it's all gone over. On Wednesday we had reports of the first Pink-foot Geese flying overhead, so that's it, it's officially autumn, all that's left is to light the woodstove - any day now we think.
KH and HB were slightly square-eyed early in the week but are now fully recovered from last weekend's sport-fest of cricket, F1, tennis and lots and lots of rugby. England gave us palpitations, so they'd better do better on Sunday... and if Tigers don't win soon there will be words!
In the midst of the birds and assorted balls a CJS Weekly has actually appeared (we're quite surprised, its been another one of those days, hence the lateness of the blogging) and it's quite large at 17 pages, including the Training Calendar for November along with 34 new paid posts of which 21 came direct to CJS. Digital editions are already online, print editions are being dispatched shortly and post allowing will be with you on Monday.
We've had to cut a lot of the hedges to enable to the new fence to be installed and thus we've lost a lot of cover and perhaps more importantly the hips, haws and berries. So the morning routine is: lights, computers, kettle and fill the bird feeders. They're munching through quite a lot and it's not entirely down to the reduction in hedging plants. BTO have announced today the North Yorkshire gardens have more Tawny owls and tree sparrows than in any other county - well, we're blessed with both. The owls visit regularly and often be seen during the day snoozing on the telephone wires under the eaves, especially in wet weather. the tree sparrows were occasional visitors for a couple of years but this year they've been regularly helping themselves out of the feeders and even brought their brood to show them how it's done and now they visit too - wonderful. Read the report from the BTO here.
We had a slight frost overnight on Thursday, glorious star spotting and a full moon but the frost has knocked the last of the last of the heather bloom and it's all gone over. On Wednesday we had reports of the first Pink-foot Geese flying overhead, so that's it, it's officially autumn, all that's left is to light the woodstove - any day now we think.
KH and HB were slightly square-eyed early in the week but are now fully recovered from last weekend's sport-fest of cricket, F1, tennis and lots and lots of rugby. England gave us palpitations, so they'd better do better on Sunday... and if Tigers don't win soon there will be words!
In the midst of the birds and assorted balls a CJS Weekly has actually appeared (we're quite surprised, its been another one of those days, hence the lateness of the blogging) and it's quite large at 17 pages, including the Training Calendar for November along with 34 new paid posts of which 21 came direct to CJS. Digital editions are already online, print editions are being dispatched shortly and post allowing will be with you on Monday.