Feed Me, Feed me!!!!

Bigger mouth!

Wow, what a lovely day I've had so far! One which has left me with a dilemma what to blip too!

I managed to sleep for almost 9 hours (I really needed that). On getting up and making a cuppa, from the kitchen window I saw my resident Wren for the first time this year, on the hanging basket near my kitchen window on the adjacent wall - and for the first time ever I saw not just the one, but the pair of them! They stayed around for a while then one left whilst the other went over to the bird table for a short while. I was delighted to see them, I love my Wrens.

As if that wasn't enough of a treat, I also saw a Peacock butterfly flitting around in the garden. That's 2 days on the trot I've seen one - at last!

I've finally managed to get round to clearing out my old railway carriage, ready to have logs delivered for the winter. Wooohoo! I've also looked up the numbers of a couple of chimney sweeps, so tomorrow will phone for quotes to have the flue of my woodburner cleaned (ha,that should be a messy job as the woodburner hasn't been used for several years - every summer there've been Crows nesting in it so it must be full of crap).

I then decided to clear the dung out of the stable - and noticed that one of the Swallow nests had young in it again. So I grabbed my stepladder and positioned it, turned on my camera, put on the light inside the stable, and slowly climbed the ladder. I could see that the chicks were VERY young, still mostly scrawny flesh and looking like prehistoric punks! So I grabbed several quick shots and left them alone again - I didn't want to disturb them too much, and I'm sure mum and dad must have been wanting to get in to feed them. With such poor eyesight when they saw the shadow of my camera they must have thought one of the parents was apporaching with food, so started begging - which gave me a few great shots! Here's another one, and here's the third. They're so cute!

Then I dunged out the horse shelter, and realised that one of the Swallow nests in there had been hijacked by the Wrens (which explains why the one in the stable which had been commandeered by them last year had been abandoned this year). Here's the nest.

As I was making my way back to the cottage, I saw a Green-veined White butterfly on a thistle. With camera still turned on I manged to creep up to it and get my first ever shot of one! Despite seeing many so far, they seem reluctant to settle anywhere and just flit around quickly. Just one shot was possible before it flew off - and I was delighted with it when I uploaded it. This shot was the other contender for my blip today - I had a hard job choosing between it and the Swallow chicks.

I also managed to get another side-on shot of a Gatekeeper which I was really pleased with.

Well, the weather's glorious, Tom's been fed and my dinner's prepped and the meat cooking - so now that I've blipped early, I'm off to sit in the garden and start celebrating the Olympics closing ceremony VERY early! lol