Tag Archives: grass

Poetry, Pigeons and Purple Emperors

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Yesterday was the last day of the month and several submissions windows drew to a close. I was rushed and badly prepared. The worst bit was that I paid for a competition entry and realised when I looked at the receipt, that it was just past midnight, meaning that I had missed the deadline. I wrote and told them to accept it as a donation. The Ancient Idiot rides again!

Baby rabbit in the garden

In the end I made nine submissions of the ten I had intended. August is a quieter month, with only five submissions planned. I’m hoping to catch up, as there are 12 planned for September. I have very little completed work at the moment. What is worse is that I have very little that I actually like, and if I don’t like it, I don’t know why anyone else would.

We have had Stock Doves in the garden several times recently. They are modest birds, not much different from a feral pigeon in many ways, and come to feed on the seed spilt by the smaller birds on the feeder.

Stock Doves and “grass”

It’s been a good summer for seeing new bird species in the garden but it has been a thin season for butterflies. Having said that, one of my sister’s friends saw a Purple Emperor in the country park. They are found over the border in Northamptonshire and have been spotted in Lincolnshire.

I’ve been reading about them, and about a memorial to a crashed aircraft near one of the woods where they can be found, and am feeling enthused to make a trip.

Note on the photographs – the rabbit photo was taken on the 19th May, the Stock Dove photo on 31st July. The grass in the last picture actually looks a bit greener than it really is – what a difference. Apart from the colour, yes it does look scruffy in both pictures, but there doesn’t seem a lot of point mowing when it is already under stress.

Always close to hand

Sorry about the title (which I forgot to add in the first instance) – they are doves, not pigeons, and Purple Emperors hardly get a mention, but I am driven by a need to alliterate.  Yes, it is a word, I checked.

 

Nest boxes and planning…

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It’s a crisper day today, still nice and bright but with lower temperatures and higher winds than yesterday.

It’s National Nestbox Week this week – does the cornucopia of bird-based activity never end? The group has been helping out, resiting an old nestbox that was donated to us. If you look closely you can see one of last year’s boxes on the tree to the side. We have a couple more to put up, including one for the flycatcher that lives behind the recycled bus shelter, but they are in a box near my front door, where I forgot to pick them up this morning.

We now have a volunteer to build us two kestrel nest boxes, and along with the volunteers to put them up it’s looking good. One is going to be built into the statue where they roost and we’ll have to look for somewhere to put the second. I entered the kestrel I saw yesterday in the national kestrel count. They don’t really need it because the Midlands are thick with sightings, but you have to make the effort don’t you?

Meanwhile it’s full ahead on tidying up. We have a farm talk tonight and we just realised how much the grass has grown.

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Now that we’ve finished with the bird count we’re moving onto trees as a subject. They’re certainly easier to count as they don’t flit about and hide in hedges.We have the Woodland Trust coming down next month to give us some training on trees so we want to be properly prepared.