The Beast from the East

Thus was the expected weather styled; very dramatically, and we took the warnings to heart. Logs were chopped over the days before, and we brought enough indoors so that we could even avoid a trip down the yard. Online shopping arrived the day before the snow, the bird feeders were topped up and I brought the yard broom and shovel into the kitchen.
The north east wind howled around us, sporadically bringing snow before settling into several hours of blizzard.
Jeff braved it, but hurried back in. The Rayburn temperature drops when the wind's in the East but the woodburner was going flat out and we kept an eye on the news. The next morning there seemed no more snow; I shovelled away a small drift outside the back door and cautiously tested the glazed tarmac that was bare from the wind coming round the corner. It was treacherously slippery. Jeff wanted to go out; although he has 4 legs but he went straight over. He's too old to raise himself up from spreadeagled - I crawled to him (didn't dare to stand up) and pulled him back to the snow, where he managed to get up.  The wind was as icy and strong as ever. The snow had a thick crunchy crust on top. We had more snow during the day; I developed a technique with Jeff; put his harness on and only walked him on crusted snow - I could control where he went, and if he did fall I could more easily haul him to better footing and get him back up.
The birds flocked to the feeders; they were blown this way and that, slipping over on the ice; I watched them from the window. The blackbird crouched every time she stopped; to keep her legs warm or to prevent being blown over?  There was far less arguing; they were all desperate to eat.
We've had a pair of Great Spotted Woodpeckers coming - they are so smart.

Very blurry picture of the G S Woodpecker

I made a snowman but he only lasted a day before the thaw

Aha, that must be the Beast from the East

I'm back...

It's not the right way to do things; start a blog or diary and then stop, or leave huge gaps..... over a year since the last entry.... that's a bit extreme. But I only ever did it for myself, so what? Far from increasing the amount that I recorded, the blog had the effect of finishing it off altogether. I used to write notes in a little book but haven't even managed that recently because of feeling that it should be on the blog, and then never managing either.

As I sit here drinking my morning cup of tea and watching the birds coming to the feeders and being so glad that it's a bit warmer, I suddenly managed to log in again and write this.  I wonder if I'll keep it up.

A new roof

The thatching is going really well and has been an amazing experience.  I am so glad that the birds had all finished breeding - there are a lot of sparrows that nest in the eaves.  The thatching material is water reed, from Hungary.  It would have been wheat straw years ago, and I wonder if cottages here were ever thatched with common rush which grows so well - we have lots of it in various damp spots.  The ridge of the roof will be perfectly plain, following the typical old Devon style.

A moth with a hook on its back

This little moth settled on our door - we could not tell whether the pronounced hook that curved up was an appendage, or the moth's own tail, curled over its back.  Googling didn't help either!  Maybe someone will recognise it.

Living together

This jackdaw will have to look elsewhere for a new home now that our gable end is repaired.  There is new bargeboard and the 'wiggly tin' has all been sorted out and red oxide painted, as is traditional here.  The roof that the jackdaw is standing on will soon be newly thatched.  There are plenty of other places available for these birds, who have finished breeding for this year, and there is a limit to what we are prepared to put up with in the name of wildlife preservation.

Summer's come....and it's all go

What a change in the weather from last week - it's been really hot and it looks as if the fine weather may coincide with our thatching which is just about to start.  The scaffolding's up, which meant Paul could finish a couple of jobs on part of the roof, adding new bargeboard.  I took the opportunity of the temporary hole to throw this huge collection of twigs out of our roofspace.  It's jackdaws that have done this - we have seen it before when they are trying to build a nest.  They find a small hole that they think is suitable but don't understand the necessity for some sort of ledge, immediately inside, for the twigs to land on.  They simply keep on posting sticks through the hole which drop to the floor below (or, as in the case of a chimney, down to our register plate) and they never manage to make their nest.  If there was a ledge, they would stop when there were just s few sticks laid and get on with the egg-laying.

Rain, Ringlets and Rabbits

We had an impromptu barbecue on which the sun shone and the rain fell in equal measures.

The blackbirds that nest in the workshop complained about the activity/not being able to to get in under the door, and we had to decamp to further over in the yard.  It seems a good time was had by all, and we went for a nice ramble during which Darren took this great photograph of a Ringlet butterfly.  There are very many, fluttering out of the grasses as we walk.

  He also got a lovely shot of one of our wild bunnies who are always out on our back lawn.  They've had a scary couple of days with a visiting dog whose sole aim in life seemed to be to eat one of them. Our old dog doesn't bother about them at all.

Roses

We've had a very warm day and all the grass has been cut including the field path, which was very difficult with long sappy growth after all the rain.
This rose on our 9' wall is always spectacular.  It is "Bobbie James", a huge rambler which we have two of, the other one is climbing a couple of small trees at the bottom of the yard.   It has huge trusses of flower; one stem this year with 100 buds on it.  The bright pink rose is a suckering Rugosa which pops up all along just there and even on the other side of the wall.  There is honeysuckle all mixed up with it so the evening scent is lovely.

Jackdaws, Wood Pigeons and Spotted Flycatchers (and a moth)

The pair of jackdaws are still going in and out of the hole in our eaves and I managed to get a photo of one just coming out, you can see the silhouette against the cream colour, and its wings are pinned back within the hole.  Its mate watches from the end of the roof.  The youngsters have finally fledged after days of encouragement from the parents - lots of cawing and demonstrations of how to do it, and a baby's head would appear at the hole, as if to say "You've got to be joking...jump out of here? No way!" but they did it in the end.

Three days ago I spotted a large Poop in the middle of our yard.  Closer inspection could not identify the culprit - it was big enough to have been done by our dog but entirely the wrong colour and anyway he always discreetly backs into the flower beds.  It was black and white with a squiggle at the end and a blob underneath (yes how sad am I) and looked more poultry-like than anything, not fox, we thought pheasant maybe.  Paul cleared it up, but we were very surprised to see another in the same place, almost identical, yesterday morning.  A trawl of the Internet suggested Wood Pigeon - somebody else describing a similar scat, deposited in roughly the same place over several days, and they had actually witnessed the crime!  Very odd, and today there is ANOTHER ONE!  Not quite so big this time!
(Monday update - no poop today).

This is the nest of a pair of Spotted Flycatchers in the ivy on our old wall.  The parents are very actively zooming around the garden in a distinctive fashion, often returning to the same perch, collecting flies.  They are quite plain little birds with pale fronts and a few freckles . We have had them there before; I found a nestling once that I thought had fallen out - I picked it up with a leaf (so as not to put my smell on it) and returned it to the nest, and watched, and the parent came and threw it out again.  It didn't survive.  Sometimes it's OK to interfere; sometimes not.  Some people say you should never interfere.  Well, I do.  Sometimes.  There was a little moth motionless in the dog's water this morning.  I scooped it out - it was still alive and quickly walked around, drying, and I left it on a leaf outside.  The flycatcher probably got it.

Solomon's Seal sawfly 'caterpillars'

These little grey larvae are on this plant every year, but after the flowering period. I spotted a few and took a picture, and then turned over the leaf which broke as I did so; there were many more on the underside.  I left it like that and in an hour the exposed ones had gone, whether to hide underneath or been eaten by birds I don't know.