Tuesday 12 November 2013

Old Lawyer's Beard

A brief post today, goodness knows what has got into me... 2nd post in 3 days!

I filled the feeders up on Sunday evening and due to the horribly wet weather yesterday the birdies didn't visit until today. The rain didn't stop me though. Our Monday volunteer task went ahead and we were largely sheltered in the woods. A nice warming fire and some tea made (by me!) using the kelly kettle made the chilliness worth it. We piled the larger coppiced logs against trees to prevent them from rolling down the hill, and the smaller branches and logs we chucked on the fire.

Anyway here is Mr Blackbird in the garden just keeping an eye on me to make sure I didn't pilfer his worm!


The sparrows were squabbling amongst themselves for the remaining seed.

Not a very sharp photo but was taken through glass and dingy weather. Shows the squabbling though.

There were about 30 at one point, either picking at the fallen seed or waiting on various branches ready to take their turn. There was also a little blue tit, a great tit, a lovely robin, a collard dove and a number of chaffinches visiting the garden during the morning.

Poor photo but shows a few sparrows lining up.

This evening we nipped down to the strawberry fields and marshy fields where, last week, I had seen a fantastic specimen of Lawyers wig! The cap was much whiter then, and covered more of the stem. I think it is a rather charming fungi! The turned up black edges really do look like it's descriptive name! Think I'll keep checking back on it to see if it changes any more.




The old man's beard looked pretty against the vaguely pinky sky. The midges were out in force...



As we neared home, the clouds almost instantly turned pink, I love how quickly the colours in the sky change!


That's all for now folks. I hope you have all had a great start to the week :) I am off on a brushcutter course tomorrow. Then I will have that all important certificate (hopefully!) to say I can use one safely, which is important when volunteering or working for an organisation.

20 comments:

  1. Glad to see you have so many House Sparrows in your garden, brilliant little bird.

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    1. It is nice to know that a bird which is in decline in many areas, is doing well here!

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  2. Very impressed you managed to capture the midges in any way at all! Love that first Blackbird pic.

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    1. Thanks Em. I'm not quite sure how I managed it either!

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  3. Hi Lou MRy. if you have Midges, it still must be warmer than usual. Good to hear you saw a goodly number so Sparrows and that looks a great fungus

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    1. It has still been quite mild here Margaret. The fungus photographed has now disintegrated entirely! Caught it just at the right time!

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  4. Great photos... we have lots of sparrows too.. :o)

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  5. Great photos - really love the sunset one and well done on capturing the midges :) Love the toadstool - one of my favourite species and one of the few I can id :) Good luck with the brushcutter course :)

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    1. Thanks RR :) We had another lovely sunset the other day which will probably feature in the next post. The course went well thank you :)

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  6. 30 Spodgers? I'm impressed. Never see more than a dozen or more anywhere now in the Fylde. love the sunset - must have been a cloudy day/

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    1. There are a lot more than 30 around - they like the hedge along the country road running near our house. They roost in the conifers outside our house and then flock into the gardens to feed in the mornings :)

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  7. Lovely stuff again, I'm not sure I am familiar with that fungi but as you say it suits its name perfectly. Also great sunset image :-) PS. Hope the brushcutting course went smoothly :-)

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    1. Thank you David :) The course went well thank you! I shall elaborate in my next post probably.

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  8. I envy you all those Sparrows - none here. We have had some beautiful sunsets recently, haven't we? Hope the course goes well.

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    1. They are such charming little birds! I love to see them, even if they do eat all the food in a matter of minutes! We had another glorious sunset the other day so I shall put photos on the next post. The course was great thank you!

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  9. We're slowly building up our sparrow colony from zero when we arrived to 6 yesterday :-)

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  10. We (me and my next door neighbour) look after a family of 12 sparrows and they are delightful, lots of squabbling and cheeping and generally flying about in a very busy fashion. I love the way they queue up at the 4 port seed feeder.
    Beautiful skies too.

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  11. They must have been hungry again because all the food has gone! In the front garden there were 4 on the fat balls and 3 on the seed and 4 on the fence. In the back garden there were countless again! There have been a whole string of lovely skies this week!

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