A Sad End to the Weekend

I have just come back from the vets where I said goodbye to Bobby. He had become very ill towards the end of last week and with all his ailments looked as though he had given up the struggle to live. On the recommendation of the vet he was peacefully let go while I stroked his head.

This is the photo I have had as a background on my computer for years and is the way I will remember him - curious but gentle.

RIP old feller:



We had a good six years together and his age of 14 was a good one for a Lurcher.

Friday at the Flicks - Hedgehog Time, Blackcap, Bobby's Picnic

Up to three different Hedgehogs are visiting every night now.  Here two different adults (different markings) and one juvenile arrive at various times on one night.



Early last night an adult was eating when a juvenile arrived. It appeared quite nervous and approached very cautiously. That time it didn't manage to get much to eat but did return twice by itself to finish off the remaining peanuts.



I haven't seen any sign of the Blackcap for several days so I guess it made up for weight loss on its journey back to England and then moved on to find a mate. I did manage this bit of video when it spent a short while at the Birdy Bistro.



Bobby has always been a Sun worshipper. During the exceptional weather this past week he spent much time dozing on the lawn. On one occasion he wasn't interested in coming inside to eat so ended up with a beefburger picnic on the lawn, complete with hidden medication.



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you, wherever you are.

Snow For Sunday + Sparrowhawk

For once the weather forecasters weren't telling porkies. So often they get it wrong for the coastal part of Lincolnshire. The forecast was for up to four inches of snow arriving after dusk. It started at 6pm and was still going strong when I retired for the night. Along with the snow was a brisk breeze so it was no surprise this morning to wake up to a good layer of snow, mainly around 3 to 4 inches deep. Some areas with just a dusting and others well over a foot deep where it had drifted.

This is Bobby photographed yesterday sporting his padded Winter coat:



The view from my front door this morning:



Just a few of the many birds in the back garden digging in the snow to find the buried seed and suet pellets.



We went for our usual walk round the block this morning. The going was very slow as there were drifts at every entrance to a property where the wind had piled the snow.

It was inevitable that with so many Blackbirds visiting the garden and kicking up such a row as they squabble that it would catch the attention of a Sparrowhawk. I had already seen it make a couple of unsuccessful attempts but on a return visit it managed to catch one:

 

Bobby Back Home

The old boy is feeling a bit fragile at the moment otherwise reasonable. Mainly as he hasn't been able to have his medication during the day.  Magda, the vet, was surprised to see that his heart is not enlarged but an ECG confirmed a leaky valve. She was very good, showing me the three X-rays and explaining what could be seen. The main problem is some congestion in the lungs which his water tablets should help with. I've managed to entice him to eat a little and hide his medication in that. Now he is sprawled out on his chair once again, sleeping off the remains of the sedative used and catching up on his beauty sleep.

Taken a few minutes ago:



The total cost was £257 which included the 3 a.m. consultation a few nights ago (that being the most expensive item on the list), injections, X-rays, ECG and all the prescribed medication for the next month. I have seen reports of vets who charge up to that (or even much more) just for an X-ray!

Update on Bobby

The vet took some blood from Bobby this morning and has just phoned with the results. Slight anaemia which is probably age related. Otherwise liver and kidney functions were OK. She wants to give him a chest X-ray and ECG in the new year as his heart murmur is worse than the last time it was checked - level 5 on a scale of 1 to 6 (6 being the worst). This is to check for any fluid around the heart and work out the best treatment.

This morning's incident was neurological in that his back legs gave way, not for the first time. Back leg and heart problems are 'normal' for older sighthounds (greyhounds, lurchers, etc.) and at 14 Bobby has reached a grand age for his breed.

 

Although stiff from being prodded about and somewhat tired B has eaten well and had a short, slow walk. I think his neck must have a cold spot where it was shaved to get at a vein.  For the moment we continue with his half tablet of Previcox (anti-inflammatory) daily plus occasional Tramadol for painful days.

I doubt there will be a Friday at the Flicks tomorrow but all being well there should be a Saturday at the Cinema.

Off to the Vets

Had to make a quick appointment to take Bobby to see the vet later on this morning. First thing today the poor old fellow had a fit of some sort - possibly a mild heart attack as he has had a heart murmur for a while. At 14 he is getting on a bit for a Lurcher so some old age health problems are to be expected.



Yesterday I had my own annual check up and was pleased, and relieved, to find that the results were all on the good side.

Friday at the Flicks - Bobby

And now, as they say, for something completely different. A few weeks ago there was a news item about some slow motion film made which showed how dogs drink. It showed how a dog curves the tongue backwards to scoop up the liquid. The speed at which this happens draws up a column of liquid and by quickly closing the mouth a quantity is trapped in the mouth.

I wondered if I could film this myself with Bobby just using the TZ7 and slowing the playback down enough to see what was going on. The result is shown below. The first part of the video runs at 1/10 speed and it does a reasonable job of showing the drinking action.



Some of the original film, shown on the Discovery channel, can be found here on YouTube.

Have a great weekend observing the wildlife, and domestic life, around you.

Bobby Says Hello

to a Hedgehog. (The meeting has been slowed down as it was so short.)


Hedgehogs have been arriving singly for a few nights now so I assume the mating was successful at some stage last week.

More Blackbirds by the Dozen

The colder the weather the more Blackbirds arrive in the garden at first light. This morning, at -6.5C, I counted at least 26 Blackbirds milling around the back garden gobbling up the seed I had scattered late yesterday.

Watching this male Blackbird searching in the snow yesterday reminded me of an old television advertisement for a make of toothpaste which used the sound bite - Ring of Confidence....



Here a female Blackbird with its feathers fluffed out to keep warm.



Many of the birds show frost on their backs and wing feathers.

Wood Pigeon:


Rook:


Every so often a group of Goldfinches arrives. One day so many arrived I had to put up a second feeder just for them. They don't exactly welcome any other birds to share their food store.



A prolonged cold spell like the one we are having is very hard on wildlife. Yesterday it was mentioned on the television that small birds such as Robins don't have enough body mass to use to generate enough body heat over a long freezing night. Small birds like the Blue Tits can lose a third of their body weight in shivering (the way small birds keep warm) during a night of freezing temperatures. Last night's minimum here was just below -9C and even in the daytime it is only managing the dizzy height of -1.5C

There is a certain four legged hairy monster which insists on exploring from time to time. He goes out, has a quick enquiring bark to see if one of his girlfriends is about, ambles round his favourite spots and then charges back in and curls up in his chair - until the next time.

Don't Shut That Door

Only a little scattering of snow overnight but it's making up for it now as bursts of heavy snow move in from the North Sea. Every so often Bobby took a tour of the garden and had a quick burst of energy dashing through the snow. After a while he decided enough is enough and came hurtling back indoors. It's a good job I am ready to open the door as he would never be able to stop on the packed snow and ice outside the back door.



Yesterday Lincolnshire ground to a halt as the drifting deep fine snow on the fields covered the roads as soon as the snow ploughs cleared them. Even the postal delivery didn't materialise.

Weather condition are so unusually bad that the Lincoln Christmas Market has been cancelled. The first time that has happened since it started about 28 years ago. Normally 100,000 people visit the Christmas Market and the authorities decided that road conditions were so bad, with no sign of immediate improvement, that it was too dangerous for all concerned.

Temperatures have hovered around 0C which allows some snow on the shed roof to start melting but the resulting drips of water are turning to icicles.



The first time I have seen any icicles for quite a few years and that one, taken yesterday, is steadily growing..

Blackbird and Apple

Knowing from past experience that Blackbirds like to eat apple I chopped a windfall in half and put it out over a week ago. Finally this morning a male Blackbird decided to help itself. Rather grainy photos as it was early, poor light and the 50D was set to ISO 3200 to obtain a reasonable shutter speed.







 Having invested in a Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mobile phone which has an 8Mpixel camera these are a couple of the first test shots as taken with no processing.

Are we going walkies or are you going to fiddle with that phone all afternoon?



Great all round phone but very battery hungry!

The Great Tit has just arrived in the nestbox, and fluffed itself out ready to roost there for the seventh night running.

It's a Weary Life Being a Dog

Lambs, Fruit to Come, Experiments with HDR, a Yellow Dog

All todays efforts were taken with the Lumix TZ7

There are a few short lanes / tracks left in the village where one can pretend there are no buildings. This one leads to the field where we saw the lambs.





Signs of things to come:
The first strawberry flower (growing in the greenhouse)



The flowers on my dwarf plum tree. It only had two flowers last year but this year things look more promising.



Having at last found how to set the bracketing on the Lumix I have experimented taking shots at +/- 2/3 EV and decided to see what the result would be if I processed a couple as HDR using  Photomatrix Pro. Considering the photos were taken hand held the program did a great job of matching the three shots which make up each picture.

A Daffodil (not a lot of difference with this subject)



A succulent with the low sunlight shining through the plant. (A much better subject)



Somebody was not amused when I burst out laughing. Bobby had decided to push through a miniature weeping tree which is covered in catkins. Maybe he was doing his impression of a Lincolnshire Yellow Belly.




It's a good job he doesn't suffer with Hay Fever.

Birthday Boy's Unofficial 12th Birthday

As Bobby is a rescue dog I have no idea when his real birthday is but today he has been with me four years and he was eight at that time. Some time ago Bobby found out that Buddy Roo was treated to cheese topped beefburger for his sixth birthday and has been looking forward to his share ever since. In fact he got two small beefburgers, one cheese topped, some Jerky and his favourite - a Tripe Stick.



I don't think he was too amused with the musical candle. The tune was a bit high pitched for his delicate hearing! Once the burgers had been chopped up and the candle removed then his Birthday Breakfast didn't last very long.





Eating is a very exhausting activity so the next item on the agenda was a long snooze in a Sunny spot out of the breeze.



OK so I'm getting dafter by the minute in my old age but Bobby enjoyed it!

Colourful Starling, The Moon, Pond Water Tastes Best

Look at a Starling in dull weather and they seem to be a very drab bird, black or dark grey. On the other hand when the Sun is shining at the right level their feathers appear to glow with a multitude of colours.



As the sky was clear last night I decided to take a sturdy tripod outside so I could try the 100-400mm lens to see how it would cope with photographing the Moon. I was quite surprised and not a little pleased with the results which contained good detail even after cropping.





I wonder what is special about pond water. Although Bobby has a bowl of water next to his food bowl it seems that the water in my nursery pond must have a taste more to his liking.



A good job he was drinking from the opposite end to the place where I had put the frog spawn for safety.

Four Pigeons and a Stock Dove

There have been anything up to six Wood Pigeons in the garden each morning picking up the spilt seed. Especially since the local farmers activated their gas 'cannons' to scare them off the crops. This morning it was a plasant surprise to see the Stock Dove timidly joining them.



There are still a good number of Blackbirds visiting each day. It was amusing to watch a confrontation between a pigeon and a Blackbird. Neither was going to give way. The Blackbird crouched down, beak open and the Wood Pigeon was gently flapping its wings together in front of it as if to try to box the Blackbird's ears. In the end it was the pigeon which had to retreat.

When I first looked out of the window there were six Jackdaws on the lawn which scattered as soon as they spotted me. At the same time a lone Rook sat in a tree checking whether it was safe to join the others for breakfast.



But as soon as it spotted me watching it took off.



This has been our third sunny morning in a row and a certain hairy monster misses no opportunity to soak up the warmth. Bobby grabs a suitable morsel and rushes outdoors to find the right place to enjoy breakfast.



Yesterday we went for an amble through the only wild area left in the centre of the village. There were lots of birds about, Wood Pigeons, Magpies, Great Tits and several I couldn't identify so it looks a good place to go by myself and spend an hour or two with camera in hand. The only things which would stay still long enough to be photographed were a few Rabbits in a meadow.



As usual there were a few House Sparrows sat in my thorn hedge soaking up the warmth from the sunlight.



The Blue Tits continue to make occasional brief visits to the nestbox so there is still hope they may eventually make up their minds and choose my box this year.

Regarding the mystery bird song my thanks to those who suggested Mistle or Song Thrush as being a possible contender. I  found a couple of reports, from 2008 on the Manchester Birding Forum, of Mistle Thrushes singing in flight so I may be getting nearer to a solution.

http://www.activeboard.com/forum.spark?aBID=96752&p=3&topicID=15192795

One refers to it being mentioned in BWP which I take to be Birds of the Western Palearctic. (outside my price range) One description I saw likened the Mistle Thrush flight song to the sound made by the sort of rattle people used to (still do?) take to football matches. That seems to be a fairly reasonable interpretation of the sound I hear quite frequently round the village.

Winter is Still With Us

Didn't get far on the morning walk. Not much more than a hundred yards or so on the nearest grass verge. After last night's rain and a drop in temperature the road and pavements where a smooth sheet of ice. A little later I could hardly see the houses opposite as a blizzard descended for a while. The snow showers have continued on and off all day so far though with a rise in temperature it isn't settling for long.



As can be heard on the soundtrack the Sparrows have hardly paused for breath all day as they chatter about the awful weather conditions.

Busy Birdy Bistro

It was definitely a bit on the nippy side at 7 a.m. when we went for our morning  walkies. According to my outdoor thermometer it was -5.6C and I don't think it was far from the mark. A couple of inches of overnight snow added to yesterday's inch made for fairly easy walking until we reached the main street. There, as usual, the scattered salt from the council lorries had melted the snow before the temperature dropped and the road and pavement were covered in patches of ice. In these conditions scattering salt on pavements makes them more dangerous than doing nothing.

Yesterday the Starlings hung around the feeders all day instead of making their usual three short visits. In fact the Birdy Bistro was packed all day with the usual vistors and the chef had to work hard to keep up the supply of seed.

Photos are grainy. I think I should have lowered the ISO but lighting conditions were very variable.
I am always fascinated by the wide open beak method used by Starlings to gather seeds.



This meant that a lot of the time they ended up with a ring of snow round the beak which they had to keep shaking or brushing off.



Every time the birds moved around there would be snow flying about, as with this Chaffinch walking along the top of the bird table.



Some of the smaller birds, as with this Robin, kept out of the way of the Starlings and were very hard to photograph as they kept moving - like this one which took off just as I pressed the shutter.



Between meals the birds found what comfort they could. Here a Collared Dove found a branch in full sunlight and settled down to warm up in the -2C temperature.



This House Sparrow and Robin found a sunlit spot amongst the old brambles.



A Jackdaw found that one of my aerials made a great vantage spot to survey the garden.



A dog has to do what a dog has to do so every now and then Bobby ventured to the bottom of the garden after stretching his weary legs. After all it IS exhausting being curled up in you favourite chair most of the day.