Moonlight

With a few thin breaks in the cloud last night there was a halo round the Moon. I tried several shots but it was very difficult to photograph the effect. Either the halo showed but the Moon was well over exposed or the Moon surface features showed and the halo was lost.






I didn't get the tripod out, just rested the camera on the side gate, so I was quite pleased to see the Moon's craters in the second photo.

We did manage to get out of the lane this morning so Bobby won't be giving me dirty looks all day today.

Yesterday I put a large auger bit in the cordless drill to make a few holes in the ice on the pond and was quite surprised to find it was over one inch thick. That is going to take a long time to thaw.

In the Bleak Mid Winter

Most of the garden pond has been frozen over for several days. A little clear water is evident where there are thick growths of pond plants. Hopefully the higher temperatures today and tomorrow will melt some of it. Surprisingly the fish have survived these conditions in the past.



The slightly higher temperature last night melted the top layer of compacted snow which has made walking even more treacherous. I cut this mornings walk very short. My lane does not get treated and there are no footpaths. This is the view from my front gate.



It is possible to walk on the grass verge but every time we reached a driveway the compacted snow was like walking on glass covered with a layer of oil. The same goes for the road surface itself.



I don't think we will be straying very far today!

Friday at the Flicks - Visitors in the Snow

All the feeders have been very busy these past few days as the garden birds found it more difficult to find natural food and fresh water.



Male Blackbird
Wood Pigeon
Male Chaffinch
Starling
Female Chaffinch and Starling
Greenfinches
House Sparrows

Occasionally a few of the larger birds would visit the fat ball container though not as many as I expected. Here a Jackdaw is feeding itself as well as showering pieces for the ground feeding birds to enjoy.



Quite a bit of the snow in my garden has disappeared though the packed snow down the lane will take a lot longer to go as the temperature is only just above freezing.

At Night The World Turns Orange

Taken through the kitchen window at night. Misty conditions were reflecting back the orange light from the village street lamps. Used a sturdy tripod as it took an eight second exposure with the Canon 350D.



The mist has turned to a fine drizzle which is falling on the frozen snow so I think I will have to borrow some skis tomorrow when I walk to the local medical centre a quarter of a mile away.

Season of Goodwill - except for Blackbirds

I get used to the Starlings continual squabbling as they become impatient for their turn at the feeders but they do sit quietly next to each other a lot of the time. The same cannot be said for the Blackbirds. Just recently there have been several visiting at the same time and there is no way a Blackbird will tolerate another getting too close. As a result they spend more time chasing each other around the garden than they do feeding.

Turkey Fat is not for the Birds

Whilst trying to find some information about the under wing colouring on Robins I came across an interesting page on the RSPB site. Basically they are recommending that left over turkey fat from the Christmas dinner is not used, by itself or mixed with seeds, as a food for our garden birds. One problem is that it is a soft fat which does not solidify and can get on their feathers and ruin the water repellent properties. Another is that many people rub salt into the turkey to crisp up the skin during cooking. Unfortunately this will get into the run off fat and is not good for birds.

Other left overs from the Christmas feasting which the birds will welcome include Christmas Cake crumbs, Crumbs from mince pie pastry and biscuits. The full article can be seen HERE on the RSPB site.

With the prolonged cold weather many of us have been experiencing the visitors to our gardens need our help to survive. Please remember that water is just as important as some food scraps or bird seed. That is the one thing I have to attend to several times a day as each fresh container of water I put out freezes over quite quickly.

The Determined Robin

Yesterday I was watching a Robin which, from a distance, seemed to be head butting a planter over and over. It would perch on the dark planter and watch the green one nearby. Every so often it flew across to the green planter aiming at the same point on the rim and then fly back to the dark planter. I would guess it had spotted a spider or some other tasty morsel as many spiders, earwigs and other small creatures live under the rim.



In the end it stopped and moved on elsewhere but I don't know whether it got its meal or just gave up trying.

Something I can't say I had noticed before - that is how pale the colouring is under a Robin's wings. They are usually seen hopping about with wings closed or flying rapidly from one piece of cover to another so only the brown upper colouring shows.