Nearly Ready for Summer

The little summer house is very nearly finished and ready for occupation. Just a few bits of tarting up to do. Also waiting for the first decent rain to see whether there are any leaks which need seeing to.

Looking In:


Looking Out:


Not a very inspiring view but I positioned it so I could see the pond waterfall (in front of the blue water barrels) where birds like to bathe. They don't notice me in there so I should get some decent photographs later in the year.

This morning was fraught - not a lot new there then. I want to be able to use the iPad and a cheap s/h laptop I have ordered while in the summer house. My wireless router doesn't have a strong enough signal to reach outside so I bought a Netgear  WiFi Range Extender (WN3000RP) from Amazon. The idea being to have that in the kitchen to boost the signal outdoors. It arrive this morning and I spent hours trying to get the thing to work. It would connect to the router but nothing would connect to it. In the end I phoned the Netgear 24/7 support line (an 0844 number so that cost me money!). It took 40 minutes to set things up but in the end it was worth it as all seems to be working perfectly now. Just hope the laptop connects OK when it arrives. I must say that I was very pleased with the support person who was patient, friendly and knowledgeable. I was quite surprised when I asked him where he was and found that support is in the Philippines. Netgear support is free for 90 days and from this experience I would describe it as superb.

Friday at the Flicks - Female Blackcap

The male Blackcap has continued to visit the seed feeders fairly often. Much rarer are sightings of the female so it was pure luck I managed to take some video a couple of days ago:



Have a great weekend observing the wildlife around you.

Hedgehog Chat Up Time

First - apologies for not giving the answer to the previous Guess What yet. It's been a busy few days. As Sunday was such a good day I decided to start erecting the little summer house. I found it is possible for one person to do the job though the time taken is much longer than advertised and it wouldn't be much shorter with two people. Mind you it wasn't helped by having the wrong pack of bits and pieces. Nothing new there then! Monday was bitterly cold but I plodded on with the job, as I did yesterday. Now there are just a few finishing touches needed to complete the job. One thing I did find out - now I've reached three score and ten years my joints complain a lot more when subjected to constant bending and stretching.

The summer house is built on the small paved area where the hedgehogs used to feed so I wondered how they would get on. They have a couple of slabs next to the patio and seem to have found the food with no problems. I left the recorder running last night and was surprised this morning when I checked for any activity to see the mating ritual had started. As usual the male's idea of a chat up line is to charge at the female in an attempt to mate with her. This can go on for hours, night after night, until she is ready. Until the female is ready and lowers her spines it is a prickly encounter for the male.



The slabs aren't sloping - just the crazy angle I had to put the camera to cover the scene.

I'll give the answer to the previous Guess What next Monday.

The Squirrel's Tale

Looking Up

I always seem to be looking at and photographing trees from a distance.  For a change today I decided to stand under them and point the camera up to the sky. I used the Nikon S9050 on its widest view. Some I couldn't get really close to as there were ditches in the way. No telling until I got home exactly how they would turn out as it wasn't possible to see the LCD screen while taking the shots.

Maybe I should call them a Squirrel's Eye View:

Colour shots:















B/W shots (taken by accident as the awkward way of holding the camera in one hand meant I kept catching the menu change by accident):

Great Tits Inspect Nestbox

For the third year running a pair of Great Tits have been inspecting the nestbox:



Maybe we will be lucky enough to see another brood later in the year.

There is a Blue Sky

A couple of really nice looking days with blue sky and white clouds. Yesterday the wind dropped enough to enjoy a walk for once in spite of a 6C temperature.  We took a couple of public footpaths we haven't used for a while. In the afternoon we had to wait in one narrow lane while the council were repairing potholes in the road so I watched the activity in what looked to be a home made beehive. Plenty of activity in spite of the low temperature.





Walking down one of our usual tracks I could admire the blue sky while madam enjoyed all the interesting odours.





That was the only time I felt cold as the breeze was blowing straight down the lane.

Home, a cup of char and then out with the mower to give the grass its first trim of the year. Not too low a cut as the mornings are still frosty.

Blue sky again today but the wind was stronger giving the feeling of being more than a bit cold.  Looking at the local news for this area the local weatherman says that for central England,  March was the coldest since 1892 - yes eighteen ninety two. Central England has the world's oldest temperature data set, dating back to 1659. Things are supposed to be looking up next week. Should have warmer temps nearer the seasonal average, but changeable weather - that means rain. Total rainfall measured here for February was 32mm and for March 38mm and the lawn has only just dried out.