Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Winter



Three, four days of glorious sunshine. Icy nights, chilly days, but sun and blue skies. Today, fog and hoar frost on the trees, a painter and tracer of outlines more meticulous and accurate than a human artist. Waiting for it all to drip, drip away.

We’ve been doing family stuff - birthdays, cooking food – two days of hearty meals and puddings. Baked lemon pudding just to test the recipe, and Devil's Food Cake to celebrate. We were ready for them after walking, one day along the farm track, the next day, out in Fineshade woods, where we saw our first ever siskins (as far as we know) on a window feeder, and soon afterwards in the trees eating the seeds from pine cones. A couple of birdwatchers pointed these out to us, or we'd probably never have known what they were. The one on the feeder flew off before the cameras were ready, and the ones in the tree were out of range. There is a  picture on the RSPB page  .  It's a great site for info and you can hear each bird's song as well.
Later we passed a contender for the title of 'world's grumpiest birdwatcher' with a face like an old zinc garden bucket, battered into odd planes and angles. Our greeting was obviously over-familiar and unwelcome, for it was met with a disapproving stare. Just our interpretation, of course.

5 comments:

Karen said...

That webpage is great - we were on it last year when my mum was staying and we were trying to settle an argument about birdsong!! She was right, of course.

There's a proud-looking robin perched right outside our window at the moment (he's there most days) but of course the minute I reach for my camera he's gone!

aliqot said...

We are convinced that the red kites around here have some way of knowing when we have a camera - all we see then is a speck growing smaller and smaller...

Pat @ Mille Fiori Favoriti said...

Thank you for dropping by my blog, Aliqot.
A very nice poem. I missed the eclipse! it was too cold to stand ouside and I couldn't see the moon from my house windows.
Your Yorkshire pictures looked so lovely and Isaac is so cute! He has such a twinkle in his eyes.

aliqot said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
aliqot said...

Thanks, Pat. I got out of bed at 3 am did a quick dash round the house to see if I could spot the moon - no joy, so back to bed pronto.

Yorkshire is a wonderful area, and Isaac - well, he's my two-year-old grandson - of course he's cute!

Removed my previous comment to correct my speed-typo problem. Nothing sinister.