Keeping Busy

Shot of the Day

It would have been Anne's birthday today so it hasn't been the easiest of weekends but I've managed to keep busy, starting with a walk at Longtown with Tootlepedal. It's a nice even walk of approximately two miles following the course of the river Esk, then round some old gravel beds where there is plenty of wild life.

I regard this one of the finest bridges in the area.

It was nice to see buds appearing on some trees along the river bank.

I like the wind turbines in the distance.

 I'm still trying to work this one out!

The bridge catching the last light of the sun on our return.

On Saturday morning I was up nice and early as I was going to Wauchope Cottage to watch Cat Barlow do some bird ringing. She had already started when I arrived and was carefully untangling the first batch. Cat shows great skill, patience and dexterity, never at any time putting the little creatures under any undue stress. When they are taken out of the net they are carefully put into cloth bags which keeps them calm. She then checks the condition of their feathers, this can give her an indication of their age among other things. Then they are weighed and wings are measured all this is recorded and put onto a data base later. Which is then downloaded to a national data base. If you want to see more photos and a more detailed description of Cat's bird ringing day, please visit Tootlepedal's blog

Mrs Tootlepedal's tools of trade

Later in the afternoon I went and picked up Tootlepedal and we headed for the moorland feeder station as neither of us were up to a walk.

I started off with some hand shots

Then I got the tripod out and concentrated on the niger seed feeder where a place on the feeder was highly contested.

Later I moved the tripod to a feeder near the screen and focused on the branch above. There weren't may visitors but I was pleased with the shots I got.

There has been no activity at the nest cam for about a week now but I was told that Bluetits sometimes build more than one nest before they settle for one. So maybe they have chosen somewhere more discrete.

In the evening I went to quiz night at the Masonic hall with Mark Grieve his wife Kirsty and his mum Avril and as I am a distant relative you could say it was a family effort. We came second by one point. It was a good quiz with no categories just a mixed bag of questions. there were eleven teams of four and one team of two. No guessing for which team won.

This morning I received a visit from fellow blogger Gavin and his wife Gaye. They brought a lovely gift of a rose plant for me to plant in the garden in memory of Anne. I now have to decide where it will be best sighted. I then spent the rest of the day preparing this blog except for a quick visit to see Tootlepedal. He told me had had a full day of rest doing nothing except making a batch of Chelsea buns which I was aloud to sample. They were delicious! 

I must apologise about the quality of some of the pictures. I have been fiddling about with image sizes and lost quality in quite a few and I'm to tired to repost them.