The builders started last week. I told them there was a deer. The planners told them I was a liar. By Friday they believed me. She has been bouncing around my garden all day. Tomorrow they are fencing me in and her out with anders fencing all along my boundary.
I won't complain about the mild weather when it's saving me so much on heating bills but I worry that animals are going to wake early and we might still have a late cold snap. The Beast from the East was later than this and we've had snow into May in recent years. Too mild too early.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
I agree @wild edges. We're getting lots of frost etc end of the week, but we've had a few nights of daft high temps - higher than we'd get during the day at this point. Good for the heating bills, as you say, but not for other things. I'm not cutting anything back in the garden either, other than taking a little bit off the manky Verbena hastata as it's hiding some crocus, and removing the dead Hakonechloa foliage. The blackbirds are getting very friendly, and the pair of robins are looking hopeful, but its the blue tits I always worry about. They have a hard enough time of it in any year.
There's hawthorn hedging showing green here too- that's a good 6 weeks early.
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
In the last two weeks we are starting to get daily (or should say nightly) visits to the hog food, have yet to catch sight of a hedgehog so must be visiting in early hours, will have to get the camera out.
I could also do with a spotting scope to help with the tricky ones.
Definitely. I can't imagine birding life without a scope. I could just do with my old eyesight back!
This image certainly wouldn't win any prizes but would I have known it was a Merlin without the 30X magnification of a scope? I wouldn't have been able to prove I'd seen it without putting my phone camera against the scope's eyepiece.
After this I ended up ordering a second hand scope to try out. I went for one of the compact travel scopes which probably won't be amazing compared to a full size one but at least it will be a start and I'm more likely to carry a smaller scope with me. I just took this picture through it with my phone at about 12m away from the feeder and through my slightly dusty kitchen window. I'm really pleased with it and I can hold the phone up to the eyepiece and the kids can watch the birds on the screen.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
I looked up scopes after reading about them here; I'm getting a bit obsessed with bird watching. Bit bloody expensive aren't they! I'm not sure I'm hardcore enough to justify it, but maybe this smaller one you speak of @wild edges would be more affordable?
I went for one of these after reading some reviews that said that they were as good as ones that cost a lot more. It was under £300 second hand and scopes with HD glass don't seem to come much cheaper than that. I've seen some great second hand ones for around £500 but my budget wasn't going to stretch that far. I need to get out and try it on some long range stuff before I recommend it too much. It looks good so far though.
If you can keep your head, while those around you are losing theirs, you may not have grasped the seriousness of the situation.
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I'm not cutting anything back in the garden either, other than taking a little bit off the manky Verbena hastata as it's hiding some crocus, and removing the dead Hakonechloa foliage.
The blackbirds are getting very friendly, and the pair of robins are looking hopeful, but its the blue tits I always worry about. They have a hard enough time of it in any year.
There's hawthorn hedging showing green here too- that's a good 6 weeks early.
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...