Robin on my Teacup, Country Calendar - December Part 2 - The magic mistl...

-
How to grow mistletoe, one simple trick!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The dangers of living in the country

-
I know that you might think that living in the country we do not get to see people very much. And it is true that I cannot walk out of my door and have a natter with a next door neighbour and I can’t just pop in to a cafe and catch up with friends who happen to be there. But you would be surprised how often I do meet up with friends – it’s just that you have to make more of an effort and it all has to be arranged and planned and when we do meet – we never stop taking – you see there is so much to say after only having our pets for company. Well, anyway, I am trying to tell you about what happened last night. Now the nights are drawing in we all agreed to meet up for an evening meal in our nearest town to cheer ourselves up. I offered to pick up a friend in a nearby village and drive to the nearest town miles away. What a good time we had catching up on news and ... well, just talking to a person and not a cat or bees or the like. But at the end of the evening I was dismayed to find tha
Read more

Flying through the air in summer

-
Image
Here come the butterflies searching for flowers rich in nectar This is the Peacock with the Holly Blue butterfly They are back! Now the buddleias are in flower the butterflies are here to drink their nectar. I especially love seeing the beautiful red ones. There are whites too, of course, they have been here for some time. We don’t like the whites as much, because they lay eggs on our cabbage plants and, when their larvae hatch, they eat the leaves. But there is another ‘white’ butterfly that has just appeared. It is not quite white, in fact, this is the male and is very yellowy, the yellow of butter. I wonder if this where ‘butter-flies’ got their name. The female is harder to spot as she is a cream colour. I like them in the garden because they do not eat our cabbages, their caterpillars eat buckthorn leaves. Once you have seen them with their big yellow wings flopping around you will never mistake them for cabbage whites. There is something else flopping around our garden, but
Read more

Ghosts

-
Image
They were there as soon as I opened the curtains this morning. They looked so perfect with their clean black and white markings and yet I know why they are there and it’s not a perfect reason. Magpies will be looking for young baby blackbirds and robins to eat. The robins in the potting shed are doing well. They have chosen a basket high up on the shelf to nest in and even though Mr T accidentally knocked it the other day they are sitting tight. If I stand and wait, I see the robin flying close to the ground like an arrow and then in through the open door of the potting shed. Our blackbird is also nesting nearby in the holly hedge. I have seen her bringing in long threads of hay and grasses. I know it is the same one because she has a white collar around her neck like a vicar. But this collar is not removeable it is made up of white feathers. I have seen this effect here before but usually one wing feather is white. Last month a white magpie was seen in Wales. There does not seem t
Read more