Twotlepedal

Today’s guest picture was sent to me by my daughter, Annie and shows the sort of dull birds you get in your garden if you live in the middle of an enormous city.  (I am envious.)

We had another dry and cloudy day today with the thermometer at a measly three degrees C at breakfast time.  I was once again acting as relief bird feeder filler for the Moorland project so I went up to the feeders after breakfast and filled the feeders.  I was just getting ready to settle down in the new hide for some bird peeking when I was joined by Sandy and we spent a companionable half hour enjoying the show.

There wasn’t a great deal of light but there was a lot to watch.

A chaffinch tries the seed.

A greater spotted woodpecker is spotted

A coal tit and blue tit test the nuts.

A great tit checks out the photographers.

A robin poses prettily

Another woodpecker

There were a couple of interesting double acts too.

Two clever girls

Beauty and the beast

And an acrobatic pheasant to round things off.

Even in the shelter of the hide, it was pretty chilly so we retired for a warming cup  of coffee and a slice of toast.

Mrs Tootlepedal told us that we had missed some fine sparrowhawk posing while we were out and that explained how few birds there were to look at in the garden.

I did see a couple of larger birds later on.

A rather ruffled pigeon. I wonder if it had had to duck out of the hawk’s way.

And a blackbird looking rather cross at his privacy being invaded by an intrusive lens.

I made some vegetable soup and did the crossword and this filled in the time until Mrs Tootlepedal left after lunch for her monthly Embroiderers’ Guild meeting.

In her absence, I got myself well wrapped up and went out for an undemanding twenty miles.

The wind was from the east and blew me up the road on my way out and I reached the ten mile mark feeling very cheery. The way back was theoretically easier as it has more down than up hill but the wind felt much chiller when it was in my face and I had to work quite hard to get back faster than I went out.  I just managed it but was extremely glad to get home and have a refreshing cup of tea and yet another slice of toast.

I was rested and warmed up by the time Mrs Tootlepedal got back and after a delay we set out for a gentle pedal.   The delay before starting meant that the light was fading by the time that we had got to the point of no return on our circuit and we wisely decided to return home rather than to try to complete the circuit.

I took a shot of Mrs Tootlepedal speeding off back down the hill.

Although the camera makes it look like a pleasant day, the snell wind made us glad that we had shortened our route.

The sky above us looked curious, as though it couldn’t make up its mind as to whether it was a cloudy day or not.

It certainly wasn’t sunny whatever the skies said.

My knee stood up well to the combined thirty miles of the two rides and apart from still being a bit swollen, it is behaving admirably.

In the evening, leaving Mrs Tootlepedal at home painting a dressing table, I went off to a concert at the Buccleuch Centre by Kathy Stewart and the Frequent Flyers.    Although Kathy is from New York, she has lived for many years in Scotland and they hadn’t had to fly far to get to us as they are based only 50 miles away in Peebles.

Once some early sound balance troubles were sorted out, it was a very entertaining set with songs composed by Kathy interspersed with those of other writers.  Her partner, who is a gardener as well as a double bass player, turned out to be a whizz on the harmonica and the other musicians (guitar, mandolin and a very discreet drummer) were very competent as well and the band had a really tight beat throughout.

The flying bird of the day is one of the woodpeckers from the Moorland feeders this morning,