Winter Visitors

It is cold here, only minus 0.7c now in late afternoon. We had snow twice earlier in the week but the afternoon sunshine each day just melted it away. My Husband is busy making a bird table. We had put some fatballs out for the birds on a string hanging from a hook (outside) in the window recess of our lounge window but our neighbour's 10 month old alsation put his two front paws on the window sill and calmly ate both the fatballs earlier this week.

So The making of the bird table is a neccessity, it will be a portable bird table as my husband had a cine camera from Father Christmas and he likes to film and photograph the abundant wildlife. He is also fond of his home comforts so he prefers to do so from inside the house, if at all possible.

The red squirrels that live in our garden will probably also visit the bird table as they have probably forgotten where they hid all the walnuts in the Autumn. We have eight walnut trees in our garden but,if I want walnuts for baking I have to buy them because the red squirrels have them all! Perhaps next year we will have to pick them early and let them mature once picked.

We have only seen a few deer this year but I think that is because, apart from a cold snap around Christmas and this current spell of cold weather, the Winter has been so very mild, so there is still plenty of food in the woods for them. One bitterly cold, frosty and foggy day last Winter we saw three deer walking accross our meadow.

The buzzards and red kite wheel accross the sky on bright days looking for lunch. Another visitor to our garden is a beautiful woodpecker not the one that taps on trees, this one taps on the ground for insects and has very colourful plumage.

The visitors to our garden provide us with so much pleasure and interest in these quiet winter days. Who needs TV soap operas???