Ever since I saw an editorial in last Tuesday’s Evening Standard, I’ve been meaning to write a serious blogpost. However, ever since last Tuesday I’ve been a bit under the weather, and not really up to it (before you jump to any conclusions, correlation doesn’t equal causation, remember).
So in the meantime, to keep you entertained, here’s some hot bird action from my garden this afternoon.
Swimming tips for children
Always let an adult make sure it’s safe to bathe.
Sometimes they’ll take a sip to make sure it’s all right for you.
Allow an adult to check the depth.
Remember kids, until you have learned to swim well, stay in the shallow end.
Always swim with an adult present.
Make sure you dry off afterwards.
And finally, eat after your swim, not before.
More.
Aww. Bless.
Are they really parent & child? Female (adult) blackbirds are brown, and it seems too early for the babies to be so big. But maybe that’s because it feels like March….
Yup, we’ve seen them around quite a bit. Got some ‘proper’ photos of the two of them. Daddy does most of the childcare, it would appear.
Am terrified that the local cats might view this as a handy lunch platform. But so far so good.
Great series. That backyard cam of yours is excellent. 🙂
The biggest problem I have with our birdbath is raccoons jumping on it (and knocking it over) as they try to spring up to the bird feeder.
Blackbird paddling in the shallow end,
Take these water wings and learn to swim
All your life
You were only waiting for the big bird to get in
Roffle.
R’pus: best Christmas pressie—well I was going to say ever, but Jenny’s given me some other stuff as well that’s just as super.
Nice one – 2,3,4,5,6 and 7.
That’s one big chick, as you comment Eva, but everything now seems to be happennening a couple of months troo soon.
I live 1,000ft up on the Pennines north of Manchester. – Before 20 yrs ago we would have deep snow much of the time from January to May. Now winter seems at its worst from November to January. This year we had only two or three days of snow, and only an inch or two deep – unheard of in my lifetime. – Winter and spring now seem two months early – with a long warm spell in February and March – but followed by a cold April. Things are now coming into leaf, even flowering, by the end of February with birds nesting and so on – but then suffering and dying back in the April cold. Nothing used to begin flowering here before the end of April. The wild life and plants trees and bushes seem confused by it all. – In Bacup, there is no question that something is happening. – Global warming is for real.
As a farmer, the biggest change I’ve noticed is that during the summer months, high pressure areas, which used to build in mid Atlantic and move northeast to bring dry sunny weather for a fortnight at a time (essential for haymaking) now move directly east over Spain and North Africa. It seems that a weather pattern of oscillating high and low pressure areas has been replaced by low pressure areas circling northern latitudes – between say Luton and Iceland whist high pressure areas circling the latitudes between Luton and and the Azores. – Of course anything south of Luton is weird territory.