Through the windows.....

It has been pretty murky and horrible weather here for the last week and a bit so no outdoor expeditions have happened. So the other day I thought I would try to take some shots through the living room windows. The following is the result. Let me apologise first for the somewhat dodgy standard - a number of factors came into play:

1. It was quite dark, 2. The windows are, in fact, less than clean (!), 3. The shots were taken hand held, and 4. I was trying to focus manually! So no excuses then....

We put out a range of food for the birds - nuts and sunflower seeds in holders, mixed seed, bread, cheese and left-over mashed potato on the ground. The variety attracts a wide range of birds.

First we have the very sociable Blue Tits, Great Tits, Coal Tits and Long Tailed Tits (my favourites), although the latter seem to be very comfortable on the floor as well!

We also get the Goldfinches, Chaffinches and Green finches but only the first two were seen that day.

Ooops, another Blue tit!

The Greater Spotted Woodpeckers have become very proficient at pecking nuts from the holders and they spend an age doing it too.

The Blackbirds love the bread but on this occasion they were determined to gobble up some of the crab apples available. Male and female are shown here.

The lovely Robin generally hops around pecking up anything available but also tries now and then to land on the seed holders - it all looks very frantic and is usually unsuccessful.

This Magpie was nosing around trying to spot where the squirrels had buried their nuts and acorns.

Another new visitor to our patio was this lovely Jay. It has been pouncing on the larger bits of bread and flying off to its favourite perch to gobble away. However, it too has learned to take nuts from the holders although it did not happen this time.

We also get visited by many Pheasants and one in particular has become almost tame. My mother calls it and sometimes it comes running up the garden to get its daily intake of seed. This one was just wandering around looking beautiful!

Then suddenly all the birds disappeared in a flurry of feathers...what had happened??

Oh yes! Dead-eyed Dick Sable had made an appearance and that was the end of my photo shoot for a while.

Autumn woods....

Guys - sorry to have been away so long....I'll try to do better!

Trees are wonderful things. Witness the following quotes:

"You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you things that you can never learn from masters." (St Bernard - French Abbott and Saint - 1090 to 1153)

"As the poet said, "Only God can make a tree" - probably because it is so hard to figure out how to get the bark on." (Woody Allen - Actor, Director and comedian - 1935 and still going)

I prefer the first. There is really nothing like walking through a good wood or forest.

Anyway, I went walking the other day in the hills above Colesbourne where there are lots of small woods shaped by the surrounding fields (or maybe it is the fields shaped by the woods!). The idea was to get some shots of fungi but in the end I only saw a few - I think I was a bit late to be honest. So, undeterred, I took at look around and noticed all the different sorts of bark - smooth, rough and everything in between - as well as the different colours and markings. I am not sure what types they were but I think Beech, Silver Birch and some kind of fir tree were around. It was also an opportunity to check out my new tripod......so none of the following photos was taken using flash.

I did manage to get a few shots of the remaining fungi and here they are. No names I'm afraid - my knowledge of these is even less than my knowledge of trees!