More November

The last couple of days have been dry, yesterday was lovely, clear blue sky and almost no wind, today is cloudy with a cool breeze. It is really looking like winter now as Ben and I go for our walks, there are very few leaves left on the hedges and the berries have almost all been eaten. There were a lot of holly berries a couple of weeks ago but I noticed there are very few left today. I put the first fat balls out in the garden today, it didn't take the birds long to start on them, under an hour in fact. The Gold finches have been in near the house on the dock seed heads, they only come to the bird food when I put out sun flower seeds and bird seed. I like to leave seed heads on things as long as possible so that there is a bit of variety for them to choose from. We seem to be a bit down on blackbird numbers at present but they may be out round the fields still. I hope to see them later in the year, we had five or six last winter. I have added two photos to the blog which I took last winter one of a rook which spent ages trying to get the fat balls off the hook. The second one is a young Sparrow Hawk which visited three days in a row and just sat on the stone trough under where the bird feeders were, it never came again after the third day.

November

During the winter I am going to include things of interest in both our garden and the immediate locality as there is less to see on the old bog road now.
It seems that the coming of November is a signal to all the birds that it is time to get into their winter flocks. There are large numbers of the finch family congregating now in the hedges as Ben and I go for our walks. The pigeons are also to be seen in the fields in quite large groups. The river Barrow in Athy has its usual flotilla of swans which always gather at this time of year, it has evidently been a good year for cygnets as there are quite a number of young ones among the flock. I haven't seen the buzzards lately but they are probably somewhere in the locality as they have been mewing round all this year. We have a good range of species of birds visiting the feeders again. they seem to feed at slightly different times of day, for instance great tits, coal tits and blue tits come mid morning, then around mid day we get sparrows, chaffinches and green finches in larger numbers. The robins like the bird table best as do the black birds. The pheasants are rather nervous at present as the shooting season has just begun but quite a number roost in the garden. the red squirrel paid a fleeting visit to the garden again last week which was lovely.

Weather

This last while the weather has been so changeable it is hard to know what season we are in, firstly it was so warm we might have been on the mediterranean, then it turned positively arctic with strong gales and heavy rain. We had a couple of bright sunny days but the wind was cold, now we are back to warmer days but wild and wet again. The gales have all but striped the trees now and they are showing their wonderful skeletal structures. I think that perhaps I like them almost best now as their true strength and beauty can be seen. The time trees are at their very best is spring  when the leaves are just unfurling and you can still see their structure. The ground is still very dry as I walk with Ben round the fields and down  the old bog road, I can still go in my shoes and Ben comes in clean which is a huge bonus at this time of year.

Blackberries

When I have been walking for the last couple of weeks I have been looking at the fruit ripening on the brambles but every time it rained they got spoiled and also I kept forgetting to take a container with me. Well today I got it right and picked just over a pound of berries off only one hedge. I made them into stewed apple and blackberries when I got in. While I was picking Ben had a wonderful time going in and out through the hedge. He put up a couple of pheasants and ran himself ragged after them. He lay down and slept once he had stopped panting while I did the stewed fruit. It smelled wonderful cooking and tastes just as good.

Pheasants

It is very windy today with bright sunshine and heavy showers. Ben and I took a chance of a walk between showers. Down the road Ben cocked his ears and then dived through the  nearby gate, almost immediately a bunch of about a dozen young pheasants shot in the air flying in all directions as they went. Ben went chasing round after them. As he came back out of the gate he paddled through a pool of liquid mud. I had to wash his legs before he could go indoors when we got back, but he did enjoy himself.

RED SQUIRREL SIGHTING

As I was away for a few days I didn't go on any walks with my dog Ben. However over the last week we have been out every day, the weather has been very variable from pleasant sunshine to torrential rain when we both got soaked. I have seen  evidence of what I felt sure was lots of activity by the red squirrel, in the form of dropped and broken hazel nuts, but until this evening had not caught sight of it. Today just before six o'clock I saw some thing moving out of the corner of my eye , on turning my head I saw the red squirrel leaping down the big scots pine in our front garden. It went onto another conifer and then to a large Euonymus and back from there through the fir tree to the pine trees again. I lost the squirrel then as Ben appeared nosing around the front and I whistled him inside so that he wouldn't chase it. I hope it comes again. We have seen them in the garden at intervals ever since we moved here, but hadn't seen one for several years. We still have some swallows but they are getting ready to fly south now and we will probably loose them as soon as there is a northerly wind to help them on their way. I shall be sorry to see the swallows  go as I love to see them skimming round the trees as Ben and I go for our walks. The conkers have all come down now and the chestnut trees are almost bare after the gales. The heavy rain and humid atmosphere brought out the damp Autumn smell  this morning when we were out walking.

more red squirrel

This evening when out with Ben and Peggy we picked up some hazel nut shells which had been broken open. I hope this means the red squirrel is still about here. There is plenty for it to eat at present.They are cutting logs in the forestry at the moment and I think the squirrel was frightened out of the wood.