Seed catcher

Today’s picture is a second from Joyce’s holiday in Florida. It must have been a jolt to come back home to snow.

Never mind Canada, it was snowing in Langholm this morning. When I looked out of the bedroom window, there was a mini blizzard in progress but happily by the time I had found my slippers and got the camera out to record it, it had stopped. In fact the day was rather sunny until the late afternoon when the rain came on and by 10 o’clock you couldn’t tell it had been snowing at all.

I had decided even before I saw the snow to have a couple of days rest from cycling to see if I can get a bit of oomph back into my legs. Instead, I prepared more of the Heritage DVDs and I am now down to 50 left to do. Dropscone had also thought better of cycling and he came round for coffee with some girdle scones. After coffee, I went up to the Archive Centre to copy more of the DVDs and while I was on my way there, I took the opportunity to refresh my supplies of mince from the butcher.

After lunch, I made some girdle scones of my own for the Heritage Trail committee meeting. They must have been all right because when I looked, there were none left. We have only got the children’s booklet to finish and then our work will be done. I hope the Heritage Lottery people like it all.

On the bird feeder front, in response to complaints from the gardener about the mess the feeders make, we bodged up a couple of trays from a plastic container and I put one on the plum tree feeeder and one on the nyger seed feeder. I was interested to see what the birds would make of it. We had another wave of siskins today so there were plenty of birds to try the new system out.

Before the alterations

The new seed catcher

Back to business as usual

With an additional customer

Quite a crowd

...and a redpoll gives it the final seal of approval

It certainly caught a lot of seed and at the end of the day, I emptied this back into the feeder. I am going to do this three times and then throw the residue away. It should keep the flower bed underneath a lot cleaner. I don’t quite know what will happen if it rains a lot. Perhaps we will have to fashion a roof for it as well.

At the sunflower seed feeder, there was more than the usual frantic flapping.

What happened next? I couldn't fire the camera quickly enough to see.

Chaffinch aerobatics

The Red Chaffinches formation air display team in action

In the evening, Les, Grant and I removed the car racing track from the bowling green pavilion and laid it down for its summer rest in our garage. It is always sad to put it away at the end of the racing season but it is also a sign of longer cycling days to come.

I finish with a not very great picture of a redpoll on the wing simply because it is the only time I have been able to catch one in the air. They seem to sneak up on the feeders when I am not looking.