This is more like it! The sun has been shining quite a bit over the last few days, it's warmed up and spring really feels like it's here. Of course, we have been having a few little showers, but nothing like the ice and snow of last week.
I just made John come outside with me to take this picture in the garden. The red flowers are flowering currant and the yellow is forsythia.
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Just for contrast, I've included a picture taken in 1965, at Swansea University's President's Ball (no rude comments please!). I had a 24 inch waist back then! My escort was Steve Ellis - I wish I knew where he was now. I've tried to locate him, but to no avail. I'm pretty sure he was stationed at Edgware Police Station up till a few years ago, but now I don't know where he might be. He must have retired by now.This weekend is Easter. Good Friday and Easter Monday are Bank Holidays over here, so the valley and the hills are full of walkers. I was happy to see lots of family parties out hiking, too.
I have continued to walk with Ella - but now it's more of a pleasure because I'm not lumbered with a down parka. I've had to keep her on the leash more, however, because she ran off the other day and it was a long time before a kind person brought her back to me. It turned out that that kind person is a neighbour and one of the family who take Ella for walks on a regular basis. Apparently, she heard their voices and took off after them. Had I known that I wouldn't have panicked and called home for reinforcements! Today I relented and let her off to go for a swim in one of the reservoirs. I threw sticks and she did a pretty good imitation of a killer whale going after them. She has quite long hair, so we both got soaked, but it was great fun and we enjoyed it.
Our trip to the Museum on Tuesday proved to be very interesting and it looks as though we are going to be able to make a contribution to their work. There are lots of stuffed birds that need to be identified and they have not been stored well, so there's work to be done in labelling, cataloging and storage. We're going back on Tuesday and I hope they'll be able to find things for us to do over the next few weeks and months.
At home on the bird front we've had a new visitor to the feeders. It's a gold finch, at last! This is the first time we've seen anything at our nyger feeder since we put it up in the autumn. The mix of birds in the garden has changed now. We're seeing lots more blackbirds, robins, dunnocks and chaffinches. The pair of bullfinches are still around along with a couple of pairs of great tits, another couple of pairs of blue tits and a couple of greenfinches. The large flocks of tits we had in the winter are a thing of the past, now.
I guess they're all getting territorial now. I've seen lots of nesting behaviours - chaffinches with huge beakfulls of fluffy stuff and jackdaws, rooks and crows flying about with twigs. The local rooks have a rookery right over the main shopping street in town. It's a terrible mess with poop and twigs all over the street. And it's noisy too. I'm surprised, but pleased, that the town council don't try to scare them off.
The pheasant population has changed in our garden. Mr Big has disappeared, having had his way with his harem of 4 females. This left a space which has been filled by Darkie who has reappeared accompanied by 3 females. He's not in very good shape, even though he throws himself around the yard and crows repeatedly. One of his tail feathers is broken and his feathers look very rough. I don't know if this is due to a season of debauchery or just too much fighting with Mr. Big! I haven't actually seen him mating with any of the females although I have seen him displaying to them. Usually they just run away when he tries anything!
The badgers are still coming by every evening for their peanuts. On Thursday night our neighbour, Dave, joined us for dinner and they were late. We thought they weren't going to come now that we'd showed off about them, but in the end they appeared and we were able to watch them for quite a while. Have decided to call one of them Herbert because they appear to Hoover up the nuts! You could swear they inhale them!
