March photos and a bit of Cornwall - more behind than ever before!

I have been more absent from blogging than ever! Life just gets busier. This post has been a draft for a while so I just thought I'd quickly finish it off and publish it.

Hellebore flowering in our garden early March

My trainee adventures....

Rodent footprints

Very misty morning checking the mink traps - none caught

...followed by a very misty bird survey - not ideal weather conditions but it made us use our ears! Pretty dew drop teasel

Dewy/wet reeds

Sunny walk up at Victory Wood mid March

Very windy!

From 20th March to 25th March Mum and I went down to Cornwall and stayed in a lovely B&B surrounded by beautiful Cornish countryside! We arrived on Thursday and settled in and took a walk around Wadebridge. On Friday we went to the Eden Project - Fantastic!! The weather was okay and there weren't too many hoards of people. Below is a selection of my favourite photos from our day there.

The biomes

Lovely big bee sculpture! It is a great educational centre and I do hope that it continues to be successful!

Inside the rainforest biome - not too hot at this level...

Blooming hot at this level though!!

Tulips in the Mediterranean biome

Wild boar sculptures - made out of cork!

Robin with a taste for spice?!

Carpets of heather on our way out

That is all for now folks. I have so many photos I want to share with you all! I will have to try and write another soon, and I REALLY must catch up with you all!! I hope everyone is well and enjoying the glorious sunshine we've been having recently. I expect you are all enjoying springwatch this year - lots of fascinating things have been shown :)

Thanks to all of you who take a moment to read and comment :)

The last few days of March...

After my last post which was mostly moaning about the lack of sunshine and freezing weather, this post is going to be more positive and shouting about the rays of sun which keep peeping out from behind those blooming clouds! There is still a very chilly wind and it seems to have changed from an Easterly to a North Easterly, so it is definitely no warmer!!

Along the pavement just outside our house, the daffodils are just coming out, and the crocuses are also looking beautiful. Well they would be if they hadn't been jumped on or kicked. Culprits are either the primary school kids nearby, whose parents don't seem to care that their delinquent children are ruining the spring flowers, or it is somebodies dog which has had a bit of a field day with them. I think I know which it is more likely to be. Anyway rant over. It was sad seeing unopened daffs lying around so mum took one home and put it in a little vase, and miraculously it survived!

Usually I don't bother taking my camera out with me when walking Bracken, often because it's so bloody cold and my fingers are like blocks of ice, but with the recent glimpses of that fiery ball in the sky, I decided to take it on the last couple of evening walks.

Sunlit tree trunk and bluebells emerging

Spring!!

Catkin silhouettes

Gorse looking wonderfully colourful

Action shot! Look I have my ball, but you can't have it!!

Another walk, another litter pick...

Mmmm ready salted crisps! My fave!

We also had rather distant views of a few buzzards flying way up in the cloud, soaring in the thermals. Must have been really chilly up there! We also saw a heron gliding really high up, which we thought unusual.

Heavily cropped so a bit blurry, but can make out it's markings.

 More pup shots...

Posing next to a large fallen tree

Racing back for a treat!

About a week ago I saw a couple of snipe down in the strawberry fields behind our house and then didn't see them again for a few days. We were just on our way back home and we flushed about 10 from the marshy ground. They really are endearing birds! Also quite agile in flight. I got one shot but it was already quite far away so the photo below is a cropped image.

Snipe showing its characteristically long straight bill.

Well March is finally over! We did go for a lovely walk down at Blean woods with plenty of sun but I will save that for another blog post.

So let us hope that this year April is remembered for glorious hot weather, rather than it's renowned showers!!

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, and please visit again soon :)  

A dedication and a mystery

First of all, I would like to dedicate this post to my Granny, she was a wonderful grandparent, and she died 7 years ago today. She loved birds, especially robins and today I was going to try and take a photo of our robin that visits our garden, but the weather is a bit iffy so the photo below is one I took back in the autumn. I always remember peering out of the window in the back door, trying to see which birds had visited the bird table. Usually there was a very naughty squirrel stealing the food my Granny had put out! I do believe she had a water pistol to squirt at them! Fond memories indeed x

Well in addition to the handsome robin, here are some other garden friends who are always a pleasure to watch flitting around in the trees, fighting over the food and trying to establish some dominance.

Blue tit

Blue tit

Great tit

Great tit

Collared doves in their nest (are these chicks?)

Charm of goldfinch

Wren (a bit blurry)

Great spotted woodpecker

Female house sparrow

Male house sparrow

I think I could watch the garden birds ALL day!


As you may know it is also St. David's day today and my mum always makes sure we have some lovely daffodils. This year accompanied by pussy willow.

We also seem to have a mystery on our hands....

Usually our fat ball feeder hangs nicely from a branch on our smaller tree. The starlings and the great spotted woodpecker make it swing about a bit, but they have never caused it to fall off the branch.

A couple of nights ago, I let the pup out for a final wee before bed and the fat ball feeder was still hanging as per. Came down in the morning and it wasn't there... I thought maybe it had been a bit windy in the night, but when I went out to put it back up it was too far away to have been blown down, and it was underneath the wildlife log pile mum created a while ago... I was a bit puzzled! Put it back up etc. only to find the next morning exactly the same thing had happened, and it was actually wedged underneath the logs and branches. I've been having a bit of a think about who the culprit could be but haven't come to any conclusions. I've never seen a squirrel in our garden so I doubt that could be our mystery creature. I don't think a cat would have done it, as there have always been cats around and the feeder has been up for quite a while without any trouble. So, I'm stumped!

Here are my 'crime scene' shots!

Usual hanging position

Normal visitor

GSW on feeder

Where has it gone? Who is responsible?!

Wedged under the logs and branches

If anyone has any idea what it could be, please do comment below :) Or maybe I should stay up all night and find out for myself! Or it could just be that I want it to be something other than a cat!!