Birds and cricket

I’m a big cricket fan, enjoy watching it, and used to enjoy playing too. Watching the Sri Lanka – England test this morning, I was reminded how you can combine this with some incidental bird watching.

A garden kingfisher

Sadly no photo to accompany this as it was over in seconds, but I was delighted to see a kingfisher in the garden today.

Winter wildfowl and waders

One area in which I’ve been very fortunate throughout the past year is that my work means I get to drive out to green spaces when most people are locked down. It is a privilege that I’m very aware of. I hope posting on these trips isn’t annoying too many readers!

What we’ve lost and what we’ve gained

It has been an interesting first couple of weeks at home in 2021. Some birds are notable by their absence, while others have appeared for the first time.

Growing blackbirds and more ice

If you have a garden, a yard with a few pots, or even just a window box, you will be familiar with the “I didn’t plant that” sensation. Today I had an interesting variation on that, in a pot with a heuchera in.

Last summer’s vulture tourist

Last year, while most of us were locked down and staying local, the UK had at least one dramatic tourist in the form of a bearded vulture. I wrote about the story at the time, in particular the fallacious idea that vultures had once been native.

On thin ice

I apologise for continuing to post these quick, single image posts of a frozen or thawing pond. But it’s my blog, and I find the variation in the patterns fascinating!

Meltwaters

It has taken less than 24 hours for the ice that covered the garden pond to dwindle to a thin floating pane.

Footprints in the ice

The ice on the pond took some snow, then re-froze. This had the effect of preserving some footprints.

Frozen roses

I was a little lackadaisical in the autumn and managed to leave a few rose buds in place over winter. That has created a couple of really interesting visual features in the garden.