Bird watching

I haven't really spent any time this year watching the birds, except when I did the Big Garden Birdwatch in January. From the bedroom I can watch birds on the bird feeders in the back garden. So, I spent about 15 minutes on Thursday, after 8pm, not expecting to see any birds but I did! A male and female house sparrow, great tit, male chaffinch, greenfinch and two wood pigeons. I also saw about 16 Red Kites over the garden on Thursday afternoon. The RSBP website is good for identifying birds.

This goldfinch was on the telephone wire then it went down to the garden, I got a few pictures but none of them are very good. Here is the best one!

Goldfinch

These flowers were waiting for me when I got back from holiday and they are still going strong!

I have been doing quite a bit of crocheting the last couple of days, although I'm still making slow progress! I'm on the seventh colour now but I have realised that I've been doing the end of the second row of colour wrong! Instead of going into the top of the chain three, I've been going between the last treble and chain three. It's looks fine to me though and I wasn't going to undo it all!

This has been a bit of a mixed post so sorry if it hasn't made good reading!

 

Posted using Blogsy

A beautiful day

It's been a beautiful day, very sunny but also very windy. I have finally put the pots out into the garden from the greenhouse and I managed to take some photos earlier. We have quite a large garden so I will try to get some photos to show the whole garden for another post.

This is the rockery with the pots behind it, the tall flowers on the left of the photo started coming through last year. I've looked in my new wild flowers book and I think they are Columbine. The Lupins and Foxgloves aren't flowering yet but I noticed the slugs have been eating them so I hope they will still flower.

 

 

This is a Gazania Tiger Stripe flower, it's one of my favourites but I prefer the orange ones.

This tree is in our neighbours garden, I think it looks lovely now it's in flower.

And finally, I got a picture of a Red Kite but unfortunately it wasn't very close so I will endeavour to get a better one. I missed a good photo opportunity earlier, when two Red Kites glided past the window as I was looking out.

I have just watched Springwatch in the Afternoon and I'm looking forward to watching the new series of Springwatch, which starts at 8pm tonight on BBC2.

 

Posted using Blogsy

New camera

It's been a tough few days in my world of being a carer. I care for a grandparent and there has been quite a bit of being moaned at, shouted at and having a go at. There is quite a lot of negativity here, I try to be positive but sometimes it's not easy. Sometimes I think about the things I've given up and it makes me sad - but more on that another time.

So, I treated myself to a new camera as it was reduced and I've recently had some money come through. I only usually use my phone camera because its always with me but also because I don't have a computer, I couldn't get the photos off of a camera - until now! As well as the camera, I bought a wire to connect the camera to the iPad and voilà, I just plug it in and up come the photos.

These are some of the photos I took yesterday to practice with my new camera. I really like the macro shots and the water drops on the flowers where I had just watered them. These pots are still in the greenhouse as we had frosts last week. Both of the Violas were reduced to 99p so were a bargain!

I also took these photos from underneath the water table. The one of the robin is using the zoom, although its ok I prefer not to zoom in but move closer to the subject.

You may be wondering how I make the collages of photos in my blog. Well, I use the PicCollage app for the iPad. Although it doesn't have that many different frames for the photos, it's ok for me.

I'm hoping to get some photos of Red Kites now I have a better camera, they sometimes come down quite low over the garden.

It's been a lovely sunny day here but not particularly warm, I have seen some butterflies in the garden, I think they are the Large White, I also saw a pair of Robins on the bird feeders.

Whatever you're up to this week, I hope you enjoy it!

 

Posted using Blogsy