Sorry I have not been online for a while, but I have an excuse. I am useless with anything new in technology, so when my eldest son gave me the most marvelous combined late birthday early Christmas present a wonderful mini desktop computer, the size of a double pack of playing cards, I knew I would have teething problems. Don’t get me wrong he spent a fair while of his weekend with us (suffering from jet lag having flown in from New York) setting everything up, transferring everything over from my old computer, explaining everything to me (this of course went straight over my head) & showing me things that I would never have thought possible from such a minute little machine. But now I am operating the system without his presence I am struggling & will have to wait until January when he is next over to get it sorted as when he tries to explain what to do over the phone I struggle to understand & he (sometimes) loses it with me.
So what has all this to do with my blog? Well I seem unable to put any photos into my library & as I wanted to show you our influx of birds that have come to us for the winter, this is a bit of a problem. I have tried various methods to import these shots, but none seem to be working. So unless my son reads this & sends me a 20 page email explaining in laymen terms what to do, there will be no shots until January.
The largest collection of new birds in the garden are Goldfinches, with anything up to 20 arriving on the feeders at once, mainly eating Niger Seed, but also sunflower hearts. These I think would be coming from the colder climes on the continent & have found a haven to keep them fed all winter. On the other hand flocks of Long Tailed Tits are feeding on the peanuts & I guess these are local but are happier eating from the feeders rather than forging in the woods.
Large flocks of geese (are they a Gaggle?) fly over head daily going into the local fields & waterways, returning with their usual noisiness early evenings. Not many Redwings or Fieldfares about yet, so the Blackbirds are feasting on the berries instead, so if any of the former do come to the garden there will not be to much food for them.
We have a pair of Jays that now frequent the feeders, these are very aggressive if any other birds come near them, as is the Magpie that for the first time since we have been here is becoming an early morning regular to the garden.
The one bird I feel sorry for as it gets colder is our Buzzards, most of their diet seems to be worms & with the ground getting colder, the worms are going deeper & it makes it more difficult for the Buzzards to feed on them. I often get a pheasant given to me & in my old age cannot be bothered to pluck them & roast a whole bird, so normally just pull back the skin to expose the breast, cut them out & then throw the rest of the carcass out into the field. Within an hour one or two Buzzards will find it & eat away, while I photograph them from afar. Sometimes if disturbed they will fly off with the body, but often just sit on the power cable poles & wait for me to clear off & are back on it. This year when they flew off on one occasion, the Magpie was down like a shot & ate before the Buzzard returned. I always throw the carcass in roughly the same spot & I wonder if the shepherd thinks “why do all these pheasants die in this spot?”
As for village life, Table Tennis is going from strength to strength with an average of 12 each week, with some folks coming from Pitlochry to enjoy our fun, some are missing in the winter as the Curling has started in earnest, but it is good to see such numbers enjoying their weekly exercise. We are trying to start a junior session before the adults, first week last week, but despite kids expressing an interest before the start, nobody turned up, but we will keep going & hopefully the word will spread & we can get it off the ground.
As we are nearing December we shall have the turning on of the village Christmas lights & the arrival of F.C. for the children, plus the indoor Christmas market. All of which I hope to take some photos of, but if you will see them before January is any bodies guess, my lack of technology is embarrassing.