are we sitting comfortably, sir?

or possibly madam, i'm not sure how you tell the difference in squirrels :-)

this wee bugger has been a visitor ever since i started putting out birdie food - check out his/her acrobatics here and over here. as an early birthday gift from my parents, i got a proper bird feeding station - basically a metal pole with hooks to hang feeders, plus a seed tray and water dish that clip on. the birds are learning to love it - the squirrel is also pretty fond of it! he carefully destroyed the nut feeder i had hung up (tho the spilled nuts were all hoovered up, some being buried elsewhere in the garden, so nothing was wasted), and i've not had a chance to replace it with a more robust one yet. he's not been around for a while, but the past few days it's been chillier and i guess squirrels are as fond of fast food as the rest of us, so he's been shinning up the pole to sit in the seed tray and stuff his furry squirrel tum with whatever has been put out for the birds. terribly cute, but i don't want to encourage him as he scares off the birdies and particularly in case he brings his chums - there are at least six living in the trees behind the back wall. so i'm torn: to buy a squirrel feeder or not to buy a squirrel feeder? (also bearing in mind it'll cost me a fortune in peanuts!)

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hmm, next entry is my 500th... but it won't be my 500th blip as i've still got loads to backload... somehow it feels a bit wrong to take a special one - and yet you just know i can't resist the lure of the big-number-attention-grabbing-shot! :-)
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i've skipped aheaed a little here, the backblips (from oct, mostly) begin here if you fancy a look. i'm aiming to catch up completely soon...