Saturday 17 March 2012

Saturday.


Fist of all my apologies for not having blogged for a few days. Not because nothing has been happening. More because we've been very busy during this week. Took the above photo this morning. The above two goldfinches are, I think, the pair who've been breeding in our immediate area over the last few years. There were a dozen or so round the bird feeder this morning (mostly I suppose descendants of these two). They're pretty birds to watch. They sit on opposite sides of the bird feeder (which is full of niger seed - their favourite food) and peck away alternately like one of those victorian wooden toys with a wooden ball that swings below the toy so that the birds take turns to peck.
 Our friend (and near neighbour) Patsy had organised a charity bazaar in St. Mary's Church, to open at ten. Ann had made and contibuted a big  fruit cake to the bazaar.  Ann got up early - well we both did- and made a large panful of mushroom soup, which, at Ann's request, I jazzed up with a glass of Amontilado sherry.
 We went down to the church with my contributions to the bottle stall at nine, Ann helped set up the coffee and lunch area, then at ten we wandered round the stalls, bought raffle tickets, and did the usual things at these occasions. Drove home to pick up the hot soup, took it to Church in the slow cooker, so that Ann could help start serving lunches at twelve.


Took above photo in the North of the Churchyard on second visit to church late this morning. The above tree has always fascinated me. It looks as if it had got itself  well pollarded in its youth, but has since managed to outgrow all that.  At two this afternoon attended scrabble club and had three good games (won the last). Been raining on and off all day, so Ann drove in to scrabble club to pick me up just after four. I think the choir will be on duty tomorrow morning, so I must clean a pair of black shoes.

I bid you all a very good night's sleep.

3 comments:

Pat said...

I envy you your gold finches. We have a blackbird, two robins and the odd tit.

Unknown said...

Hello Pat. I think if you offered the birds niger seed, you'd find you had goldfinches in your area. Most finches seem to be addicted to the stuff.
Warm regards, Mike and Ann.

Unknown said...

P.s. Ann wants me to add that the niger seeds that the finches drop will grow, but that it doesn't matter because the ground feeding birds (doves, pigeons, etc.) will grub up the seedlings and eat them. She also says that once you've attracted the finches with niger seed, you can, if you wish, replace some of the niger seed with sunflower seeds, which are less messy. Hope this helps, Mike and Ann.