Pheasant Returns

At last I have a chance to get on the computer. With my grandson round here for the holidays and my husband playing on-line chess it is hard to get a turn with enough time to do all the necessary things and post a blog.

We have also been away in Bournemouth for a while, staying in the rather nice Sandbanks Hotel. Our room overlooked Poole Harbour and Brownsea Island so we had plenty of seabirds to keep us amused not to mention the people learning to windsurf and kite surf. Great to watch but a bit too energetic for us to take part. We plumped for the other side of the hotel which adjoined the sandy beach and as the weather was remarkable good we spent a lot of time relaxing and building sandcastles with our grandson.

Back at home nature has been quietly getting on with the year. The squirrels have taken most of the Cob Nuts while we have been away. The Sparrow Hawk continues with its surprise attacks leaving feathers everywhere when it has been successful. The Roe Deer have been making regular appearances at dusk but always when it is just too dark to get a photo and the few remaining bats that we were left with at the end of the hard winter have now multiplied into a healthy colony again.

More good news, the female Pheasant who has been absent from the garden for a while returned today bringing a brood of three babies...clever mummy avoiding those foxes:-)))))

Air Fair Trauma

The Red Arrows have just flown over and landed at the airport ready for the Biggin Hill Air Fair which takes place tomorrow and Sunday. Living near the main runway and in the valley over which the displays take place, some, including the rest of my family, would say we are really fortunate to have such a good view but after 33 years of having t0 calm traumatised pets I don't agree. Lizzy the old cat has to take tranquilisers for it and will spend the two days hiding under a bed. I give the guinea pigs extra hiding places and lots of hay and then close all the doors, windows and curtains around them to try to deaden the noise. Thankfully (as far as the air fair is concerned) we no longer have the dogs as they used to bark all the time and strangely the hens that we used to have never minded and our Guinea Fowl (also deceased) only ever squawked at the very noisiest of the planes. So at least I know the wild birds are unlikely to be affected too much.

For the other wild animals it will be a different matter though. The first time I saw a deer here was during an air fair and it was charging around the field in desperate panic. Unfortunately, on our walk in the valley yesterday we came across some deer. The place where they are standing in the picture below is approx 200metres from the end of the runway and the wood in which they shelter during the day is even closer and runs up the side of the valley to the road at the end of the runway. Poor things they will really suffer especially this year as the Vulcan Bomber is due to fly over and that is about the noisiest plane ever:-((((

I wonder if the underground animals like the badgers are affected by the noise and vibration.

To cheer myself up I will end with another lovely poppy picture from yesterday morning's walk:-)

Dawn and Dusk

I love the early mornings. I don't like the getting up but once I am out of bed I always feel a flutter of excitement as I draw back the living room curtains to see what's going on in the valley. It is a bit like unwrapping a present, you are never sure what will be in it but it is usually something good. Dawn and dusk are good times to see wildlife as it is quiet and the animals are usually a bit braver and hugry. This morning there was a young dog fox snuffling for mice in the field which, as he was only a few feet away from my friendly pheasant, was a bit worrying but they seemed to have an understanding as both ignored the other.

I don't wake up easily for these dawn experiences but this is where one of our most important residents comes in useful and that is my cat Lizzy. She is 18 years old and has been with us, from a kitten, for nearly half our married life and most of the children's lives. She has no tail due to an argument with a car when she was two and she has a bald patch round her neck due to an allergic reaction to a flea collar. She always wakes at first light and thinks that I should also be up making her breakfast and over the years she has developed various ways of making me oblige; she meows, she stomps on me, head butts me, gives me horrible wet kisses, combs my hair with a paw that has probably just come out of the cat tray and if that fails she will systematically knock everything off of my bedside table. When she was younger I could happily push her off but now she is so old and stiff I can't do that so I get up and we enjoy the early morning together.

Dusk is also a favourite time of day for me and I usually find myself gazing out of the window instead of watching the TV. It is a good time to spot roe deer as they creep out of the wood to graze and with the warmer weather our bats have usually awoken from their winter sleep in the fir tree but this year I have only seen one so I think the others may have succumbed to the freezing winter weather we had. Very sad.