Hungry bird of prey

Having spent probably half an hour hiding behind a heap of hedge cuttings, listening to our garden shrew rustling in the ivy and waiting for her (French word for shrew is feminine, so she's a she) to emerge into the open, the snap below is all I have to show for my efforts. A shrew's behind. The rear of a shrew. If I were a bird of prey, I'd be a hungry one.

Now that I (and, more importantly, the camera) have come back indoors, the little so-and-so is very probably busy frolicking the sun. Pah!

Still, I am quite pleased to have a shrew in the garden. I have even suspended my vegetable patch extension works for fear of having disturbed its nest. Having a shrew (or shrews) in the garden makes one feel virtuous. Why, I have a wildlife-friendly garden. No, it's not just that I have let that bit along by the hedge get a bit overgrown and all untidy. It's wildlife-friendly don't you see? Plus they will hopefully keep the slug population down. And hopefully not be eaten by the local owl.

Toady of Toad Hall

Spotted this chap in the garden today. He was happily nestling in the weeds (of which there are many ) when I nearly ripped him up with the hoe. Instead I popped him in the birdbath, where he had a swim around, then moved him to under the hedge well away from garden implements. I wonder what he was doing in our garden. I mean, it's not like we have a pond or anything. What do toads eat anyway?

Homeward bound ... I was

This year being a special birthday year for me (I am now truly in my late twenties), I had decreed that I would spend the day with Mummy and Daddy. In fact, the last time I had spent the anniversary of my birth with my parents I wasn't even at university! So it was time.

And so we piled into the super Lismobile and took to the road. I think we set a new record this time, completing Folkestone to Midlothian in 8 hours including stops. When we got home a little birdie mistook Mum and Dad's house for a suitable roosting site. Aaah. We had to evict it though.


Dad says it was a green finch. He knows these things.

Alas I have nothing entertaining to relate regarding our journey, save for the thorough and far-reaching anti-terrorist controls at the French "border" checkpoint before embarking on Eurotunnel. The procedure is as follows:

1. Have four or five vehicles stop all at once.
2. Take one of those explosive trace swab things.
3. Go from one car to the next, and wipe the swab all around the steering wheel and the driver's electric window controls. Do not change swabs between cars and do not wipe any other parts of the cars.
4. Go back to little hut thing and analyse the swab.

While I am sure that the people who work for the French interior office surely are more clued up on counter-terrorism methods than myself, I have identified a couple of weaknesses in their technique. What do they do if the swab registers positive? Get everyone in all four cars to get out and unpack? And, more to the point, if you want to smuggle explosives into the Channel Tunnel, just ensure you don't touch the steering wheel or the electric window buttons. Best to get one of the passengers to pack the semtex.

Wabbits

Been up to the park. Saw some rabbits.

The birdies

Saw two bluetits this morning.

Garden life

Been watching the birdies in the garden. Have seen:
- a wren/dunnock/unidentified small brown bird (possibly two), which I've been seeing a lot lately,
- a robin (first spotted this morning has since been back three times and eaten some of the meal worms),
- Mr Blackbird. Quite often see Mrs Blackbird too,
- about a thousand sparrows

Like to see the birdies.

Birdie pic

I'm quite pleased with this shot of a great crested grebe:

:)

Friday off

Youpee :)
Rainy weather :(
Still, got a (mini) rise :)

Saw a robin in the garden but he was just flying through. Still, he might come back. Do robins eat slugs? I need birds that eat slugs. What would be really good would be a hedgehog, but I've never seen any round here.

Pancake day

Another lovely sunny start, so we decided to take the dog to the beach again. This time we choose Gullane. As the tide was just starting to come in, there were no birdies but there was a vast expanse of sand for Doggy to career around on. Which she did for about twenty minutes non stop. At the far end of the beach we did spot some Eider ducks on the water. As we spent ages looking at the Eider ducks, by the time we turned to walk back to the car, the tide had come in quite a way so we walked back over the cliff tops. And Mum spotted a roe deer! Cue lots of pic taking by Hubby and Dad and lots of hushed admiration from Mum and me. And some under the breath calling to Doggy so she wouldn't feel tempted to chase it. Which she didn't.

Pushed on to North Berwick and went for lunch at the seabird centre. Dad would like to go on the boat trip out to Bass Rock so we said he could have that for a birthday present.

Broxburn for tea (pancakes). That was nice :)

Sunday was sunny too

Another beautiful sunny day :)

Church in the morning. Saw Jennie who asked after Jeni.

Went to Kings Acre for lunch and that was very pleasant. Afterwards we went to the beach at Yellowcraig and that was very pleasant to, if a bit windy. The tide was just starting to go out, which meant restricted width and room for doggies to run around, but as a flipside it meant that there were many birdies. We took plenty of digital pics and then studied the bird book on our return home. We had seen sanderlings, turnstones, oyster catchers and redshanks. And also a shag but no decent pics of that it was too far out. So I have now learned to identify about six different birdie types.

Turnstones:

In the evening, in the middle of Top Gear (v. funny), poor Doggy mistook Hubby's hand for her chewy bone (that he was holding at the time) and sunk her teeth into it. It hurt, apparently. After Top Gear finished, Hubby and I went round to evil Tesco and bought some Savlon to wash his hand with. We all decided against calling NHS 24, suspecting they would say he needed to go to A&E, and given that we'd all had more than one glass of wine each that wasn't going to be possible. He wasn't bleeding to death or anything so we just left it.

Spending other people's money

Got a new outfit yesterday for this party thing in November.
Here it is:

The top is creamy coloured not white but the sun was a bit bright.

And here's a big fat spider (that's what I'm looking at in the photo above):

There are about eleven spiders like this in the garden at the moment. It's the season I suppose. It's also the season for blackberries but there are not very many of them right now. We had a bumper crop but they all were ripe when we were away! :(

Warm again here today. I think we should take the dog to the park then get on writing our wedding thank you cards because we really must do that.

On the work front, I have finally moved to my new office! It's quite different but I'm sure we'll get used to it soon enough. Not that Céline and I really have time to dwell on our new surroundings - far too much work going on!

And that's about all I have to say about that.