We may be a couple of weeks later than the South but our birds are well into nesting time, it is very P.C. these days not to film birds on the nest for they can be disturbed and abandon the nest. In the past I have taken shots of birds on the nest and they have continued to fledge their brood, but to stay correct I will only film youngsters or nests from a distance, so as not to annoy others. So far this Spring we have not seen to many House martins or Swallows around us, but over this first weekend of this blog we are going over to Ayrshire to visit one of our sons and his partner and they have them nestbuilding on they’re house, so I shall include that.
17th.
Since we have lived here there has been a plantation of Pine on the horizon and we nearly missed them being harvested, if you can imagine the trees going down to level with the now prominent power pole and as thick as the remaining on the right side of the shot, it has made a fair change to the view we now have.
This is the view we have now once those remaining trees in the last shot have been removed. Unfortunately it makes the other three power poles stand out even more, plus the fact that it the trees gave us some protection from the North wind, roll on the Winter winds.
Just as a comparison I have put a shot on from last year showing the wood on the right hand side showing the thickness of it and through the |Hawthorn you can see the first power pole in the other shots.
18th.
My friend Trev told me of a Nuthatch nest in our local park, I have been down with my camera on several occasions since and have not seen the birds. Today I went down and saw that both parents were in fact taking food into the nest , so have included my first set of shots and maybe in the future I will get the youngsters peering out of the hole.
First shot shows one of the birds at the entrance about the only shot of them not going straight in, then I realised that the other parent was already inside.
Second shot, a sure sign of babes as the adult is taking poo out after feeding them. Lastly aq quick take off away to hunt for more food.
21st.
As I stated at the start of this blog we are over in East Ayrshire at one of my sons home and he has got House Martins nest building. The first shot shows where they are getting their mud from, in approaching the birds half flew away and I still got this many in the shot The second shot we think is a first time nest builder as it has built the nest far to long , but it might end up okay. The last shot shows a more mature couple who have got on with it and are nearly complete, just need to make the entrance a bit tighter, but you can see one of the pair sorting it out from inside.
During the day I had an added bonus , though I have seen these two birds before I have never photographed them and though it was raining at the time and I was shooting through double glazing, it was something very special for me.
The first bird is a Tree Sparrow, a bird that is on the danger list, so wonderful to see in my son and partners garden.
The second is a Redpoll, though we have had them in our own garden I have never been able to get a good shot at one, so a very pleasing result.
27th.
As far as our garden goes and looking at others, this seems to be a good year for the Azaleas, such beautiful colours and the smell coming from this side of the garden is fantastic. There are so many varieties of colour that we would like to add some more (if we can find room for them) and below is one we added to our collection a couple of years ago and is getting well established.
Also looking good at present are our two Pyres, the first shot does not really do justice to the different shades of colour within this one, subtle pinks and varied shades of green. as for the second one the red is vibrant.
29th
I started the last blog with the saying “Don’t cast a clout until May is out” , well the month is nearly over and to prove it the first shot here is of May being out, but I will tell you what, the coat hasn’t come off for most of the month. Also as the temperature went down to three degrees last night and we have a Northerly wind, it is not coming off in the near future either.
I started this blog showing you the trees that have been cut down up the hill from us and to finish off the blog I will show you the site where they have been removed.
You can see the brown line going slightly diagonally across the centre of the shot, that is where the wood was cut down. Made it a wide and long distant shot to give you some idea of the scale of the removal’
This shot shows the timber harvested, there are five piles of stacked wood, I think it would have been one long stack but for the mature trees in between’
That first stack with various sizes of timber within it’
Last shot for this blog was taken on my way down the lane back to my car, showing a pair of geese flying over the white building in the middle is Blair Castle and the Munro in the middle is Schiehallion.