Monthly Archives: January 2025

Kites in the Sun

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Dunnock

Two days ago I did a quick bird survey whilst drying the breakfast pots. It was the normal suspects – pigeon, magpie, blue tit, great tit, robin, dunnock. Julia had seen the blackcap and blackbird earlier on. It would have been a reasonable list for the survey at the weekend, so I was quite pleased with it, particularly as it was the result of about 20 minutes, rather than a full hour.

As I wiped, I saw a red kite approach.It was quite low and all the colours were clear in the sun. Yes, it was a sunny day today, and not too windy. It was a lovely thing to see, but for garden bird counts, not admissible. Of course, I didn’t have my camera with me to take a photo. Cameras and washing up don’t mix well.

I’m now signed up and ready for the BTO Birdwatch. It’s similar to the one we did at the weekend but it’s done every week. In order to be consistent I have decided that we will do it during breakfast – from preparation to washing up.  That means it will be every day at roughly the same time and for the same length of time. It is, they say, about the birds, and not about the amount of time you can spend watching.

Of course, we have also had squirrels on both mornings

This morning I did the same thing. This time the kite flew over pursued by a crow. It is the first time I have seen kites two days in a row over the garden, and the first time I have seen one being mobbed. I’ve seen buzzards and sparrowhawks being mobbed but never a kite. I suppose that’s because I see more buzzards and sparrowhawks than I do kites.

The rest of the bird count was an example of consistency, as we saw exactly the same species as we had done yesterday, though the numbers were a little higher. It’s going well so far and I have found a retirement activity that doesn’t involve starting at a screen in exasperation. Yes, the writing is going slowly. In fact I have just spent two hours trying to “improve” a poem. Turns out that not only can I not improve it, but it wasn’t actually that good in the first place. I like the central idea so I will give it a radical rewrite tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

Julia did have her camera this morning – this is her picture of one of the two kites.

Red Kite

What would you do if you won the lottery?

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Julia as Lifeguard – Britannia Pier, Great Yarmouth

It’s the prompt for today, and  therefore  a lazy choice of subject, but it’s a question that often arises in conversation. I was only saying to Julia last night that if i won the lottery I’d like to buy the bungalow next door and use it to house the domestic staff (cook/housekeeper, butler and maid) that I think we should have to make our lives easier.

Julia says that this is ridiculous and we can make do with a staff of two and answer our own door.She has a point, I suppose.

Long-Tailed Tits

The main point is that we have no desire to move house and no burning desire for a new expensive car. It would be nice to have the money in the bank to pay for a new electric car when the time comes that the VW becomes uneconomic to run. There’s little point buying  aflash car because I’d have to worry about it being damaged or stolen. I don’t have to worry about the VW, it’s already dinged in several places and is, honestly, not worth the trouble of stealing. It would, in some ways, be nice to have a van to carry my mobility scooter around, so that I didn’t need to use one of those fragile looking folding ones, but if the win was big enough I’d just have a sedan chair built and hire two bodybuilders to (literally) do the heavy lifting.

 

Meanwhile, I was actually discussing a subsidiary of this question with a friend last week. If you won the lottery would you carry on collecting? The fun in amassing a collection is, to a great extent, in the hunting for the best specimens in your price range. If you could afford anything you wanted, would it still be fun? It’s difficult to say, because I’ve never been in that position.

But let’s say it was still fun and you put together a collection worth several million. Do you lock it in the bank for safety, or do you spend a small fortune on security at home? Whatever you do, the fun diminishes. It’s a never-ending question, and one which, let’s face it, has changed over the years.

I watched a programme once where a lottery winner paid off the mortgages of his friends. He said they all stopped seeing him because they felt awkward and embarrassed. Winning the lottery is clearly more difficult than it looks.

Anyway, this morning I had cereal and toast and marmalade whilst chatting to Julia and watching birds on the feeders. I may not have won a lot of cash, but I have won in the lottery of life. The best bit about happiness is that the government can’t tax it, burglars can’t steal it doesn’t need to be stored in a special room.

Julia, Sutton-on-Sea

 

 

False Positive

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Today feels like I have done a lot of work, but if I sit and list it all, I’m not sure what I’ve actually done, hence the title.

I’ve read and replied to comments on WP. I haven’t written anything yet (it’s now past midnight) and have only read a couple of blogs – which have been about the Birdwatch, rather than my regular beat.

I’ve researched mealworm farming, which is a lot like worm farming. The main feature is that they do better when the temperatures are warmer. Our worms never prospered, though when we move the equipment I am going to keep them in the garage for a bit of extra warmth and see if we can do better.  The mealworms will be next to them. I also looked at the practicalities of keeping them going through the winter, but decided it is too much trouble, as it needs a pump, a fish tank heater, piping and insulation. I’ll let the worms go dormant over winter and will buy dried mealworms for the birds. That was 2-3 hours for very little result.

Breakfast was toast and marmalade. We watched the birds on the feeders, I tried to write poetry, Julia went for a walk and we had a full English breakfast for lunch (including the black pudding Julia bought from a local butcher. It was good, but the price seems to suggest it is in the luxury bracket these days rather than the peasant food I always thought.

Teasel – breaking into flower

In the evening we finished off the cauliflower soup and had a sandwich. Having weighed myself this morning, I find I am back to my pre-Christmas weight. It’s far too heavy, but at least it’s not an increase.

I also did a number of emails this morning and researched a couple of articles. Didn’t write any though. Struggle with poetry again this afternoon, had cup of tea and freshly baked banana bread (Julia has had a busy day too, though hers was more productive than mine).

I also found the camera battery chargers and spare batteries – they had gone missing during the move. Also sorted my files and stationery drawers (mostly) and cleared my desk (by shoving the files and stationery into the aforementioned drawers. then I made a  mess of the desk again.

Watched some TV. Watched some more. Sat down to finish some submissions – failed.

As I say, a busy but unproductive day.

I note that according to a treaty of 1917 the UK has first refusal on Greenland if the Danes decide to sell it. That could be subject for a political farce. The only trouble is that it’s too hard to make things up that are madder than real life. My main worry, apart from WW3, is that Boris, inspired by Trump, makes another bid for party leadership.

Teasel at Rufford Abbey

I really must look at where to plant some teasel for the wildlife. So much to do, so little time.

 

Birdwatch and War with the Squirrels

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Long-tailed Tit

The results are in for my portion of the Big Garden Birdwatch. By the parameters used in the count (you enter the largest number of birds of a species seen at a time) I recorded 24 birds against a national average of 28. I probably undercounted the tits, because they will only visit the feeders in ones and twos, though there are others lurking in the bushes. However, I always feel it’s better to err on the conservative side.

Wood Pigeon

 

Here are the numbers.

Great Tit – 4
Wood Pigeon – 4
Long-tailed Tit – 3
Blackbird – 2
Robin – 2
Jackdaw – 2
Blue Tit – 2
Dunnock – 2
Magpie – 2
Blackcap – 1

Blackcap

The Blackcap is an “Unusual Bird Spot” as they ranked 31 out of 80 last year. It’s not a bad selection.  We have no House Sparrows, which are the Number One bird at the moment, and we have no Starlings, but I’m not complaining.  Sparrows tend to take over and Starlings just descend in large groups and force everything else away, so I’m not particularly bothered. I do, however, miss the goldfinches we used to get in profusion..

As it was, we had squirrel trouble for most of the last twenty minutes of the hour and they drove most of the birds away. My anti-squirrel campaign has been so successful that we now have two who visit together. They are interesting and acrobatic and this pair don’t do a lot of damage (as some of my previous squirrel adversaries have done), but they do need a lot of food compared to a bird and they do stop birds visiting.

Dunnock

We now have our peppermint oil, which we will be spraying round to deter rats, and will have to see if it deters squirrels too. If not, it looks like we will have to move on to chilli and more robust measures. Knocking on windows, sending Julia out and rearranging the feeders has, so far, failed to achieve any lasting deterrence.

Squirrels, Squirrels and more Squirrels . . .

Pictures are all from the Garden Birdwatch hour. The light wasn’t very good – the garden is much shadier than I realised and apart from that, my bird photography skills have deteriorated and they aren’t very good.

Great Tit

 

 

What is a Weekend?

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I’m reminded of Maggie Smith’s line in Downron Abbey – “What is a weekend?” For the upper classes and, it seems, retired people, the concept does not exist. Every day is a holiday and it is easy to lose track of the days, as I did this week. We were all geared up for our grocery delivery when I realised it was Friday, not Saturday. Part of the problem is the bin day – it has been Friday for the last 36 years in Nottingham, but here it is Thursday. At the back of my mind I am often a day out at the end of the week. Eventually, I suppose, I will get used to it.

It’s the Big Garden Birdwatch today.  It was also yesterday, but I always think of it as a weekend activity. Records of 350,000 birds have been submitted so far (10.30 Saturday) with the House Sparrow coming out on top with Blue Tit second and Starling 3rd. The Wood Pigeon has fallen to 4th, nudged out by Blue Tits overnight. In Cambridgeshire, the county I am in today, the order is currently Wood Pigeon, House Sparrow, Starling. We have had no House Sparrows since we moved in and very few Starlings, so we might be bucking the trend in this garden.

I am going to finish this post, have a late breakfast and spend an hour with a notebook, recording birds. It always seems better when you have something unusual to report, but even if you don’t, it’s all part of the process – even seeing no birds is some sort of result. When you see how some bird populations have declined over the years (and set this against the broader picture of a general decline in numbers) I wonder if there will be a year when that is the report I submit. It’s not a  good thought.

Soup, Birds and Mobility

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I woke early, felt full of enthusiasm and set to work. You’ve heard it all before so I won’t go on, but I often feel that a good start leads to a disappointing finish. In this case, however, it lead to some useful work and a very nice lunch (even though I say it myself) of cauliflower soup. Actually it was cauliflower and leeks with garlic, black pepper and nutmeg and a few shavings of cheese thrown in from the Christmas leftovers.

There is enough to do lunch tomorrow too.

I’m not sure if I mentioned this before, but I’ve been looking into buying a mobility scooter. I need to get out. I don’t remember the last time I went out except to drive to either Nottingham or Peterborough. No, now I’ve typed that, I do remember. I went to the Military History Meeting – drove straight there in the dark, parked, walked 200 yards to the museum, sat, listened and then did it all again, but in reverse. It’s hardly surprising I have little to write poetry about.

Blackcap – the Northern Nightingale or John Clare’s March Nightingale. Times change and we now have them all year round.

I’ve narrowed it down to two models from different companies. One has solid tyres and a a lithium battery, which are both good things that I want. The other lacks the tyres and lithium battery, but has LED headlights (the other has an old-fashioned single lamp,  which has attracted negative feedback for being difficult to replace). The final complication is that one company seems to offer better customer service than the other, though I have just been talking to someone at the one that is supposedly deficient, and it seems OK to me.

It’s very difficult making decisions sometimes, and it isn’t made easier by the amount of information that is now available on the internet. The feedback for one company is freely available on Amazon – both good and bad. The other doesn’t seem to sell anywhere apart from its own website, and the feedback is restricted to glowing testimonials from happy customers.

I’m going to sleep on it and decide tomorrow.

Meanwhile, it’s the Garden Birdwatch this weekend and we are planning on doing it tomorrow, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for some good bird sightings.

Blackbird.

 

Pens and Days Pass So Quickly

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I realised a couple of days ago that I need some new pictures of pens artistically posed across scribble (my general purpose photo for talking about writing or poetry (as if I know anything about it)). The orange Parker Pen, which I hoped would be my way to fame and fortune and free pens, proved o be a dead end. Then it broke. The barrels of recently made pens are so thin that they crack and when the ink gets into the cracks on brightly coloured pens, it shows up badly.

I also broke a good quality one and most of my others started clogging on a regular basis and I got so fed up of washing them out that I went back to fibre tips, then biros. Biro is cheap and, mainly reliable. Fibre tips, particularly cheap ones (my natural position in the market) can be erratic and unreliable so I bought some cheap Parker ballpoints and they are doing OK.

There will be some new photos in coming days.

Iranian Vegetable Stew – last night’s stew had dumplings and no yoghurt, and the greens were different. But it’s the nearest I’ve got.

Meanwhile, I have successfully wasted a day. The morning was quite productive, then someone sent me an auction catalogue. Well, you have to check in case there is anything you want, don’t you? According to Julia “You don’t.”. This is one of the areas where we disagree. However, she was the one who wanted children, and they have cost far more than my collecting. The main difference is that my collection has a resale value, but that sort of thing is frowned on when it comes to children. Mine were badly trained, so I don’t suppose they would have been worth much anyway.

At lunch (which was last night’s vegetable stew with additional herbs and a go whizzing from a stick blender) we realised it is Thursday already. Where does the time go?

Sumac and Sedum. I had no pictures of dumplings but after “dum” I picked up a picture with sedums.  Search engines, less reliable than politicians . . .

Loose Ends

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Charred Red Pepper

Just a rag bag of odds and ends to start the  day.

Woke up early but feeling full of energy. Completely unable to explain why as I didn’t sleep for long and I have a toothache. It is gradually subsiding, as I think it’s a gum problem rather than a tooth. I’m hopeful it will fade away soon.

Had an email about banning driven grouse shooting, signed it.  It’s not a great “sport” at the best of times, but there are all sorts of things wrong with it from a wildlife point of view, particularly the number of rare birds who are killed each year to “protect” the grouse.

Red Legged Partridge

I did think about adding a link, but if I did that I’d have to add links and have a balanced argument and I’m not very balanced on the question. One of the key points in managing a grouse moor is the illegal killing of birds of prey. A second is that you can never get a successful prosecution for it. The law seems simple enough – in England if your staff kill a bird of prey you are liable, but as no judge wants to imprison a big, and probably titled, landowner, nothing happens. At least in other countries corruption relies on money and politics, rather than ancient titles and who you went to (expensive) school with.

And then the postman arrived. Julia wasn’t happy as I couldn’t go to the door (no trousers) and on top of that, it means I’ve been buying on eBay again. I bought peppermint oil from there to repel rats and that’s OK. But a nice piece of Home Front memorabilia? Women are very strange sometimes.

That’s all for now. I have a wife to appease and breakfast to make.

I will be back later.

Pictures – “grouse” turned nothing up. “Red” produced a lot, but no Red Grouse. I know I have a photo but it was probably from my days of badly titled storage.

Redwing in Carrington

Work in (Slow) Progress

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Progress so far is that I’ve found 16 haibun/tanka prose that are close to completion and have worked on six of them to improve them. I’m going to work my way through the rest now, but will have to get a move on as I’m not going fast enough.

Nine days to go, and a lot still to be done.

The good news is that I only need six good ones, as editors only usually accept one at a time. It helps to have three good ones as you never quite know what is going to be flavour of the month. There are also some that have been out before and I need to make sure they don’t go back to the same places.

Slightly less good news – I still need to get 24 good tanka and haiku written and I’m nowhere near finding inspiration for that.

I’ve managed to reduce the production of the prose poems to a fairly industrial process – write the prose (which is generally fairly simple), add the poem (not quite so simple), edit, send out, edit again, and repeat . . .

It’s easy enough to stack the prose sections up, and even to edit and re-edit. When in need of a poem that won’t come it’s also possible to take one from somewhere else. I also move chunks of prose from one to another, a bit like working in a breaker’s yard. This is the perspiration stage of the stage. The inspiration bit it trickier and easily derailed by tea and biscuits, visitors or writing about medallions.

So many distractions, so little time.

Tonight’s task is to revise four more prose sections and write some acceptable tanka. I have no distractions now so I’m hoping to rattle along. We have to stay over in Nottingham for a few days so I need to increase my speed to allow for days away. My aim – write faster and write quicker. With practice, the quality will come.

Orange Parker Pen

 

A Post with Pictures and a Title

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I seem to have written a post yesterday without any photos. I’ve posted without titles before but this is a new low in memory tricks. So much for speed and progress.

Unfortunately I haven’t been able to maintain the pace but I do have a few more things done and am certainly going to be moving forward at a reasonable rate.  Whether the quality will be good enough is, as usual, a different matter. As is the question of if I am already outdated, and have been overtaken by new fashions in writing haibun. I fear this may be the case. No matter how beautifully I may be able to write (and I still have plenty of improvements to make in that sphere) if I’m not writing what editors have decided the public want to see, I won’t be published. I must  move with the times, or move to writing about medallions, or possibly change the fashion.

Today has been partly taken up with leisurely meals (cereal and toast and conversation at breakfast) and avocado on toast without the conversation (but with much manipulation of patchily under-ripe avocados) at lunch. Julia was playing a CD at lunch. I’m not a fan of the CD she was playing – some fusion jazz/soul/lift music stuff, and I’m not a fan of music as background noise, so I ate, washed up and hid back in the office.

She tracked me down with her list of jobs.

Later she went out for a walk and took these pictures under a bridge. I remember when the bridge wasn’t there. We did cross-country along the lane and I found Roman pottery whilst field walking. All history now – both my youth and the Romans . . .

For tea we had pork steaks with roasted potatoes, carrots, parsnips and leeks, and a few boiled green beans. It was reasonable in terms of health and economy.

And that is my day in retirement – plain food, nostalgia and Julia’s list of jobs. I am now going to do more writing before going to bed.

In the late afternoon, Julia called mr through as she thought there was something odd about the squirrel. It was bald on the tail and climbed to the flat feeding areas on the bird feeding station rather than the feeders – leaping up instead of scampering down the pole.

Then it disappeared under the fence – back to next door where I suspect there is a lot of bird food scattered about. I hate rats, but at least with rats there is no messing. I’m going to give it a chance to relocate, using repellent spray, grease and bricks in the hole. Then I am turning to extreme measures.

This link explains about the venue, though not the pictures. However, the organisers and the council are to be commended for their hard work and ambition. And it’s not often you will hear me praising a council or a modern music event.