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(40 posts)
  • Started 8 years ago by Christine Berrett
  • Latest reply from Rita Barron

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  1. Christine Berrett
    Administrator

    Right folks - 79 sleeps to Leeds...

    Posted 8 years ago #
  2. Rita Barron
    Member

    Yippee!!!!!!!!!

    Posted 8 years ago #
  3. Brigitte Gant
    Member

    Yeah!!! The time will pass in a jiffy. Got a Christening, Knitting & Crochet Guild Open Day, Race for life event and two weeks visit to my Mum's before then. Good job I am an OAP.

    Posted 8 years ago #
  4. Jane N
    Member

    Sounds a lovely few weeks for you, Brigette :-) I'm envious, as I've got more chemo, but I'm hoping it won't affect my fingers as badly as it did last year so that, if I'm well enough, I'll make it to Leeds. Have a great time, xxx

    Posted 8 years ago #
  5. Jean Strange
    Member

    Leeds is just too far for me! Busy time Brigitte I know what you mean about being retired. Jeff and I seem to have so many things on.

    Jane hope the chemo goes OK and doesn't affect your fingers this time.

    Posted 8 years ago #
  6. Christine Berrett
    Administrator

    Dunno how I ever found the time to go to work ;o)

    Posted 8 years ago #
  7. Rachel H
    Member

    Work? That's something you're supposed to give up when you're in your 60s isn't it? Oh yes, I remember, I tried to give up twice!! Must enjoy it too much!! At least its only 2 days a week at the moment, but even that is beginning to pall!!

    I'm going to Leeds for the first time (I'll look on the map where it is!!). I'm not going on the Excursion though.

    Soon be with us!!

    And then it'll be Leicester....

    And then it'll be Pinks Barn in December....

    And then it'll be C H R I S T M A S!!!

    Posted 8 years ago #
  8. Ann S
    Member

    Jane N. Sending you my very best wishes for the forthcoming chemo. I really don't know how you have managed to be so positive after all you have had to go through in the last year; true grit or what? Love, etc, Ann

    Posted 8 years ago #
  9. Jane N
    Member

    Bless you, Ann, that's very sweet of you. I guess I'm just lucky to have a positive outlook and, like my Dad, just face up to things and say, right this is happening what do we do about it? Onwards & upwards, J xxxx

    Posted 8 years ago #
  10. Jane N
    Member

    Diverting this thread a little (I see to be quite good at that!), I've been watching the birds this morning. Here, on the Western edge of London we get a strange mix, as there are some more rural residents (woodpeckers & jays) with the town-dwellers (blackbirds/robins etc) but the worst thing from this Londoner's point of view has been the loss of the sparrows. About 10 years ago, on a trip to Japan, I was standing under a tree in a park overwhelmed with sadness when I heard the familiar sound of hundreds of sparrows chattering above me & realised that sound was completely missing here at home. Over the past 6 years we gained a tiny group of 3 sparrows just down the road (so shy they would stop cheeping as you went past, very un-sparrow like) and gradually their numbers have increased :-) Finally, I've seen one on my garden fence this morning!! Sounds silly, but it did make me feel good :-) xxx

    Posted 8 years ago #
  11. Jean Strange
    Member

    Like you Jane missed the sparrows in recent years. Saw a few a couple of years ago some streets away. They have gradually got nearer then last year saw several in my garden at different times. Although we seem to have lost the starlings that nested in our guttering they did not arrive last year. Blue tits in the nesting box. Black birds also flying around like mad.

    Posted 8 years ago #
  12. Barbara Stone
    Member

    I shall make you both very jealous now, and tell you that this afternoon I was sitting in the garden and counted 27 sparrows flying in and around the garden. I think they are nesting in next doors roof space, and its lovely to see them. They are getting very tame, sitting in the hedge and waiting until we move away so that they can come in and have a feed of crumbs. We also saw our first swallow on Monday.

    Posted 8 years ago #
  13. Jean Strange
    Member

    Hi everyone been to the caravan in the New Forest for a few days seen finches as well as all other birds will look up book and check on which. Know Bull Finch but get Green Finch/Gold Finch confused as so similar. Got told off before for getting them confused!

    Posted 8 years ago #
  14. Rachel H
    Member

    We have got some swallows or they may be swifts, but not nearly as many as in previous years; perhaps its a bit early for them all yet. We have a pair of blackbirds who must be nesting somewhere near by; they are so funny as they seem to play hide and seek and "catch" on our garden walls!

    Barbara: Have you come across any member of the Bottomley family in your village? My mum was in the RAF with a Nora Bottomley who lived on a big farm there with her husband Roy; they had 2 children, Paul and Sara, I think. We used to visit them a lot when we were children. The parents have now died, but I did wonder whether the son had taken on the farm?

    Posted 8 years ago #
  15. Hello Jean! - I can understand your confusion on bird identification. If you were to see up close (and of the male in particular) - it would be very easy to identify which is which of Goldfinch and Greenfinch. However, very often when you see birds in the garden they can be difficult to identify because they fly from one spot to another very quickly - almost before your eyes have settled on them properly and of course if the light is behind them all you may see is just a type of sludgy silhouette.

    Funnily enough this happened to me just this morning. I was in our bedroom getting ready to go to the RSPCA and saw a little bird on a branch, which, when I noticed his little crown of black, caused me to jump about with glee telling Geoff 'there's a Black Cap in the garden!) - long time since we've had one of those. I dashed down to the kitchen and grabbed my little binoculars and dashed back upstairs again (better view up there) - fully expecting that it would have flown away, but no it was still there. While I stood there 'tuning in' the binoculars suddenly another bird flew in alongside my Black Cap!! - a male Bullfinch!! and then it clicked of course that the little black capped, soft grey feathered item was in fact a female Bullfinch. All the years I've been eyeing up any birds in the garden - and still- initially - I got it wrong.

    As with most birds of course if you get the male of the species flying in, rather than the female, they are so much easier to identify because their colours are more vibrant.

    Don't we live in a fascinating world though...... makes you think - the 'men' of the species always are the ones that have to take the least trouble to look pesentable while we females have to faff about in all sorts of ways to try and match them. Why do we bother?? - dunno. If anyone has an answer I'd like to know it please........

    Posted 8 years ago #
  16. Jean Strange
    Member

    Yes Brenda difficult to identify as all I saw was a flash of green and yellow as the bird flew from one branch to another one in a thick hedge and past caravan window!! The last time I claimed to have seen one or the other I was told it couldn't possibly be it was the wrong sort of habitat! That was by a "twitcher" though. Blue tits still madly building in nest box as far as I am aware.

    Posted 8 years ago #
  17. Barbara Stone
    Member

    Hi Rachel, haven't come across anybody called Bottomley yet, but give me time. I only found out my next door neighbours surname yesterday, and we've been here for 8 months!
    Jean, Goldfinches have a red face, with the rest of the head white and black, and the wings are black and yellow. Greenfinches are mainly yellowish green all over, so what you saw was probably a Greenfinch. There's a really good book called Philips guide to birds of Britain ands Europe, which is really easy to use and helps identify birds as you see them. Hope that helps. Twitchers can be like that - really unhelpful, but birders are normally a lot nicer. Our blue tits seem to have found somewhere else to nest, as they don't seem to be using our box. Never mind, there always next year.

    Posted 8 years ago #
  18. Barbara Stone
    Member

    Hi Rachel, haven't come across anybody called Bottomley yet, but give me time. I only found out my next door neighbours surname yesterday, and we've been here for 8 months!
    Jean, Goldfinches have a red face, with the rest of the head white and black, and the wings are black and yellow. Greenfinches are mainly yellowish green all over, so what you saw was probably a Greenfinch. There's a really good book called Philips guide to birds of Britain ands Europe, which is really easy to use and helps identify birds as you see them. Hope that helps. Twitchers can be like that - really unhelpful, but birders are normally a lot nicer. Our blue tits seem to have found somewhere else to nest, as they don't seem to be using our box. Never mind, there always next year.

    Posted 8 years ago #
  19. Barbara Stone
    Member

    Oops must have hit the send button twice. I'm sure Christine will be able to delete one of the entries in her capacity as chief administrator, and all round nice person.

    Posted 8 years ago #
  20. Jean Strange
    Member

    Hi Barbara
    Yes I think it was a green finch. We have a really good bird identification book too but unfortunately it was at home in Berkshire and I was in the caravan in Hampshire. Think our Blue Tits have moved out again too not seen them flying in and out for a day or so.

    Posted 8 years ago #

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