Joys of Winter

One of my neighbours carefully sifted all the soil before sowing what was going to be perfect lawn. Guess what! Every mole within 10 miles moved into his garden!

Indeed! Very tasty too.

There were some mole hills last summer too which, in our garden wild hillside is no big deal for us but probably something of a big deal for the mole — difficult digging.

Are you sure it's a vole
And not a mole
And where's it's hole
Wherein to scuttle

Oh chickens beware
For old baggy's there
If you get in her hair
You'll end in the pot

Camellias do well near us and are very pretty. I might try one in our killer garden.

Bramble yanking today
With cold hands
In thick leather gloves
So I couldn't keep it up for long.
Then went to tidy some ferns.
Raking up the bits
I found some more
Four inch daffodil shoots
And a bank vole hole
At the base of our fallen
But very alive ancient apple tree
Loved by jays when apple-loaded.
The chickens came over to see what was up
And had a good scratch around
Where I'd been.
I hope the vole
Keeps out of their sight.

It has been actually cold today. Was really nice to be out in it on my bike!

Don't mention food!

JessM and super ....... the camellia sounds lovely and the cat sounds hungry.....

JessM ...a bit like our cat...he's sitting on the outside mat staring into the kitchen. Black with butter yellow eyes!

I went out and bought a camellia to cheer me up yesterday. It is sitting outside the patio doors staring into the kitchen. White with pink veining and golden stamens.

four inches

We have daffies in bloom in sheltered places roun here

Seventimesfive At one time I lived in Durrington [not far from Brighton]. Fancy daffodils being in bloom! The shoots in our garden are about 4" tall at the moment.

Love the poem supernana!

I was in Brighton on Saturday with my grandson and as we walked along the boardwalk at the Marina the daffodils were flowering in front of the houses past the restaurants where people were eating out of doors. He had to feel the daffodils to make sure they were real!

annobel, put them on naturescalendar! <suggestion>

Another picture and a peaceful one this time. Love the 'lazy waves'.

I made a foray down the garden today to give some crusts to the neighbour's hens and found the snowdrops flourishing and one lonely snowflake which is usually at least a month later than the snowdrops. The cornus mas, which has fluffy yellow flowers, is coming into bloom about a month early, and the rowans have red leaf shoots.

Shafts of sunlight
dance through the boughs
of winter-bare trees
highlighting the delicate
lacey counterpane of snowdrops
clustered below.
The air is crisp and clean
the quiet punctuated
from time to time
with shrill bird-song
and the hushed whisperings
of lazy waves
caressing the stony shore.

Bagitha I had forgotten ' a chattering of starlings' and, of course that is just what they do before they settle down for the night and before the 'get up' in the morning.
The RSPB 'guide' did say that starlings are still in decline, mostly as a result of changes in agriculture such as the increased use of pesticides.
Last year they had six and a half million at this particular roost ( but it was a much colder winter here and in N. Europe from where many of the 'visitors' come.) This year they estimate a million and a half.
Butternut... love the 'melody of rising starlings'.
I have not always been a fan of this particular bird, they used to remind me of pompous little Methodist Ministers, strutting around and hectoring other garden birds!

I have that book too, super. It was a present from DD1 a few xmases ago. I read a little a day and thoroughly enjoyed it.

Thanks super! I've written it in my little book that I keep with a list of most wanted books. (It's very long......)

Baggy and Butter May I recommend another beautiful bird book - The Bedside Book of Birds An Avian Miscellany author - Graeme Gibson. Quote - 'In this stunning assemblage of words and images, novelist Graeme Gibson has crafted an extraordinary tribute to the venerable relationship between humans and birds.'

Just bought it (second-hand) on Amazon. Thanks for the tip.

their

slip of the keyboard!

OGM and butty, do you know Steve Palin's book A Dissimulation of Birds, which is a beautifully illustrated collection of the collective nouns used for birds. I've just looked up the starling bit and as well as murmuration, there is a chattering of starlings. I read something else that surprised me. After talking about the huge numbers of starlings in roosts (the book was published in 1998), he says: Starling populations, however, have not always been so healthy. At the beginning of the nineteenth century theri numbers were in serious decline. They are now fully recovered.

So a murmuration is a melody of rising starlings ........