A Handsome Dude and a Little Tit

I do not have much luck with birdwatching lately, very little birds came visiting so far, and when some did, the pictures I have managed to make were totalski crapski. Finally some bullfinches have shown up too and I managed to get two useful pictures. Somewhat useful, because it is non-stop overcast and the light is, well, totalski crapski.

In addition to that the seasonal gloom is getting to me. Not as much as to despair or succumb to gloom, but enough not to feel like writing anything. Or even reading. Or doing anything else much. I have a whole folder full of pictures how to make a gingerbread house, and a few knife-making posts worth, but I just cannot convince myself they are worth writing. I wanted to play a PC game for a while and I cannot gather the enthusiasm needed even for that.

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Jack’s Walk

Well nested, ©voyager, all rights reserved

This tree sits at the crossroad of several paths and is obviously well-favoured by some type of smallish bird. Jack and I pass this way often, but we’ve never seen an actual bird here only the nests. Maybe the birds are tucked up inside or maybe they’re out searching for food or maybe they’ve gone to Florida and won’t return until spring. We’ll keep looking, but something tells me I won’t see birds here any time soon.

Friday Feathers

We have many wonderful reader contributions which I’ll post the next week (no, I haven’t forgotten those). For now it’s the rest of the birds that I met walking through a Winter Wonderland.

On the first day I walked past a shrubbery that is always full of birds, but as we were approaching they all flew away, but all in a certain direction. Some landed in that shrubbery and then took off as well. we soon spotted the reason for this:

common buzzard

©Giliell, all rights reserved

It’s a common buzzard, but they are not frequent in this particular area as it offers little space for soaring.

Walking further we then saw our usual small friends.

chaffinch

©Giliell, all rights reserved

I cannot quite decide between sparrow and lady chaffinch with the back and tail being hidden.

crow

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Crows are always slightly out of focus, I’m afraid.

crow

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Or hiding.

crow

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Or leaving.

great tit

©Giliell, all rights reserved

But you can always count on the tits.

 

It’s the season! Making bird food.

One of the secret to great tit pics is to feed them well. You can buy “tit balls”, but for several reasons I prefer to make my own.

The first is that they are relatively expensive, costing around 30 to 50 ct apiece. More importantly, they are usually in a green plastic mesh that can get lost and end up in nature. They’re quick and easy to make, so if you want to try your hand at them, here’s how to.

I use some silicone baking forms for this. the small Gugelhupf forms are the best, since they have a hole in the middle already, but I only have four of them. Standard muffin forms work nicely as well. What you absolutely need is some ring as a centre for the suet to stick to, otherwise they will fall apart after the first pecks. I just use some rattan, but anything goes.

I just fill them halfway with birdseed and then add the ring.

Those that don’t have something to form a hole need something to make that, otherwise hanging them up gets difficult. I use some straws or an ice cream stick.

Birdseed popsicles

Finally I just fill them with suet. Don’t be shy, the birds won’t mind some extra. Now all I have to do is wait for them to get hard again and the next two weeks are covered.

Filled up with important winter calories.

I know there are controversions about whether or not to feed birds in winter, but one undeniable advantage is that we get a lot of organic fertiliser…

Wednesday Wings: Hunting Kinglets

Kinglets, or more specifically goldcrests, are the prettier cousins of our common wrens. They aren’t exactly shy birds, although they don’t like too many people in the woods, but they move fast in an area with lots of bushes and twigs. I know a spot where I have good chances of spotting them. Taking their picture? The work of Sysiphus… The big lens needs a lot of light and the autofocus needs time. Given the terrain, chances are good that the bird is long gone once it has found that particular twig*.

So here are my results of several hunts.

kinglet

©Giliell, all rights reserved

The best shot, though I don’t recommend “click for full size”. It is grainy, since the ISO went through the roof, but shooting birds at less than 1/125 is impossible anyway.

*I could still bite my own ass for not having waited a few months longer until I had enough money to buy the “sports” version…

And now for a whole row of “I should have put superglue on the branches”…

[Read more…]

Speaking of Gratitude…

Beautiful, delicious and all gone.

A few days ago I posted about the resin horse that Giliell sent me, but I didn’t tell you about the rest of the package. Giliell also sent me a box of home-made cookies and, Oh My but they were good. It doesn’t show up well in the photo, but the chocolate cookies were dusted with gold. The waffers come from a recipe of Giliell’s grandmother and they were so pretty. The ‘S’ shaped cookies are just like the ones my German grandmother made and they brought me a flood of warm, happy memories from childhood.

Origami and a pair of adorable llamas

There were lots of other surprises too. Origami ornaments and a pair of adorable llamas. Ha! Not just on the card, but the whole damn llama stamp set. What a great idea.

Look! I can make llama art.

Birds are just so Affinity and they don’t come with more personality than these 2 fellows.

Birds of a feather to keep me company.

I saved the best for last. Giliell has made me an undersea world in a bottle, which I love. It’s madly creative and also came with a flood of memories, this time of my happy place by The Gulf of St. Lawrence on the beach in Perce.

An undersea adventure world.

Giliell, you’re incredibly talented and I thank you so much for the treasures. To all of you who’ve seen Giliell’s wonderful baking, I can tell you it tastes as good as it looks.

 

 

Walking in a Winter Wonderland, part 1

This is going to be picture heavy and more than one post, but they’re all so magical.

We didn’t get snow, but some serious hoarfrost which created the most wonderful things.

bird

©Giliell, all rights reserved

First shot is what happens when you forget to switch your camera from “artificial indoor light” to “natural light”, though I do like the blue tint it produced.

erica flowers

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Erica blooming in pink and white

hoarfrost

©Giliell, all rights reserved

hoarfrost

©Giliell, all rights reserved

frozen spiderweb

©Giliell, all rights reserved

frozen stalks

©Giliell, all rights reserved

pond

©Giliell, all rights reserved

Friday Feathers

These are from David who notes:

If it’s a murder of Crows

and

It’s a Parliament of Owls,

then surely it must be …

A brothel of shags?

shags

©David Brindley, all rights reserved

shags

©David Brindley, all rights reserved

 

To me a s a German, English collective nouns are both a delight and a bane. I mean, a pride of lions and a murmuration of starlings?

In German it’s quite easy: If it flies or swims, it’s a swarm (Schwarm), with the exception of marine mammals (they have Schule, schools like in English). Carnivores that hunt together are a Rudel, a pack like wolves. Grazers? Herde (herd). Trees? Forest, unless you’re my husband who once famously couldn’t remember “forest” and kept talking about a “pack of trees”.