It's raining....

....a Summer's Day in Cumbria.

Poor Woody. He looks like he's heard the weather forecast that it would rain all day, and there would be perpetual twilight. He perched here on the chair and didn't even move when we left the house to go to work. He's hunkered down and sitting it out.

Mind you he is rather well-fed, benefitting from the RSPB's best table mix. He does struggle a bit with the sunflowers seeds, though. Yesterday, I watched him pecking away at them, and a bit like tiddlywinks, all he managed was to flip them away from his bill. When you look at his projecting lower mandible, you can see why he was having trouble.

Hmm, maybe that garden furniture could do with upgrading. If there'd been more opportunity to sit in it and soak up the rays this summer, it might have been a higher priority. Looks like it may have to do till 2012.

Afternote: there used to be two wood pigeons frequenting the garden. I found the second bird on Friday 12th August at the base of the Dawn Redwood tree. A gruesome sight. All that was left was a headless skeleton, parts of the wings and the two feet. Probably a victim of the sparrowhawk, but perhaps picked rather more cleanly than might have been expected. Woody snoozing on a chair is showing remarkable indifference to the danger.

A year ago. Another one of those Cumbrian Summer days, this time spent monitoring on top of Great End in the Scafell massif of the Lake District. I've always been quite fond of this view of a Herdwick sheep.