I cant believe how fast my order of beautiful onion sets arrived ! Drat ! I have a rotten cold and very sore throat...... and definitely dont feel like planting 350 onion sets today.
Blue skies here in Mullion the last three days, although there is an eerie breeze blowing from the east.....leaves are tumbling from the trees after the cold clear nights .
I was watching a woodpecker up in the pine trees at the bottom of our garden .This is the Greater Spotted Woodpecker. They often nest here amongst the ivy. There is one who loves to drum against the metal work on the telegraph poles ..he must think he is the finest woodpecker in the kingdom to make such a loud noise . I was watching this one drumming with a stone in it's beak ...I thought at first he had something stuck on his beak ..but when I crept up to take this photo , he had obviously dropped it .
I,m surprised that he let me get so close . They usually slither round behind the branch , rather like squirrels do . We sadly only get about one squirrel in every five years here.
So , I came in and ordered a big sack of wild bird seed and peanuts . I love to watch them at the bird feeders , from my kitchen window . Those peanuts are so expensive...but when you look out and see this ..... aaah...worth every penny ! : )
........and you can get even better photos of them ! : )
That took me back to France. Every year we had a family of GSWs on our peanut feeder. Baby, who was as big as his parents, would sit there , beak open waiting to be stuffed full of food, while patient mum and dad flew around collecting. It was magical and we spent so much time gazing!
ReplyDeleteYes, I,m so glad you get as much joy from them as I do ! ! I love to watch them pulling the big fat grubs out of our lawn..I think the grubs are the Crane fly larvae . I will dig out a photo I took of this . ..and the Green woodpecker too visits us often and we watch them feeding on ants on the lawn : )
DeleteJust love the birds ! : )
Your woodpeckers are so handsome...and better that you only see squirrels rarely. My rose buds are being eaten again! Interesting observation about the bird with the stone and hitting the metal pole, isn't nature wonderful.
ReplyDeleteOh ! No ! I LOVE SQUIRRELS !!! .....when they do find there way here , I rush to get my camera to take photos of them .....I put extra peanuts out for them too . ..and I love magpies...I live in the country and in harmony with the animals...I put chicken wire around my vegetable beds to stop the rabbits eating my crops.and I also love our badgers and the fox.. Makes me so sad that any one could harm any of our precious English wildlife . The reason the squirrels dont come so often , is because people are cutting down trees that were the corridor for them to travel through ...and the reason our beautiful hedgehog is on the decline is because people dont check the bonfire heaps before lighting them .
DeleteThere is a beetle that cuts through rose leaves , it may be that which has damaged your roses...although it rarely harms the plant .
Now would be the time that I do my rose cuttings ,. Not an expert , I get about one in five of my rose cuttings to root in a large deep flowerpot of compost and sand. Nice long ,unflowered shoots , about 10" to 15" long . rub off the lower leaves and a very tiny little bit of hormone rooting powder ....sometimes none works too ...l leave outside by my back door it is slightly sheltered , but still gets the rain ..these usually root for me by next year .....is how I do it anyway : ) Gives me something to look forward to .
It is rose sawfly that attacks my roses. I squish them, as they would completely defoliate the plant otherwise! I don't harm the squirrels, just try to shoo them away if they are attacking the plants! We have lots of trees round here, and I often find that the squirrels have buried their acorns in my flower pots. I don't mind the bees that cuts holes in my roses to line their nests, as they do not destroy the whole plant. I love insects too!
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