More Poppies

These poppies are actually in the field next to our house, so I nipped in to take some photos on my way to work. We've never seen them there before but a few clumps have started flowering - who knows in a few years it may be a red field!

Another busy day at work, I met Mick at lunchtime and we walked down to the beach where we sat on a bench and had a chat. By the time I left work at 4pm it felt even hotter and the temperature gauge in the car was reading 25 degrees.

We've been sat in the garden tonight and eaten outside but the sun's just going down and the temperature has dropped so we've retired into the Palace. The door's open and we're listening to the skylarks, it's so peaceful.

In other news it looks like Sherbie may be a female after all! He/she has shown signs of nest building just lately, and Alan pointed out that the sandpaper in the bottom of the cage has been shredded. So I googled it and all the signs are that he's a she and she's definitely trying to build a nest. You can buy little canary nests, but Alan has modified a little plastic bowl and fitted hooks to hang it in the cage, and we've put some shredded toilet roll on the floor of the cage. She immediately went to the paper and started taking pieces to try and build a nest on the perches but of course it fell off, so I think it's going to be a long process! She hasn't gone near the bowl, so I think we'll have to move it to where she's trying to build.

Having done more research, if she is nesting, she's likely to lay 4-5 eggs and even though they won't be fertile, she'll sit on them for a couple of weeks. It says that once she leaves the nest you should replace them with dummy eggs otherwise she'll lay more! So it's a case of wait and see!