Film by Bill Carr featuring his dad, my daughter’s partner, Pete. The project is part of Bill’s university course and takes ‘helping with the homework’ to a whole new level!
Seven minutes and well worth watching!
We get more than we bargained for!
On our way to Cornwall we stopped off at Stonehenge — free for National Trust members so we thought we ought to get our money’s worth! Both of us had last visited more than half a century ago and were sure we would hate the modernisations.
You park miles away and take a shuttle bus — very quick and restful — especially as you can see all the walkers striding out on the horizon — forging their way across Salisbury Plain to the ancient monument.
Bill was slightly appeased for the loss of birding time by the receptionist at the monument:
But what is this — marching to meet us?
Is it a goose? ‘It’s a wild turkey’, an American lad informs me. Oh no it isn’t — it’s only one of the rarest bird in Britain!
Recently re-introduced to a secret location on Salisbury Plain nearly 200 years after the last British bird was shot in 1832. This one has been named Gertrude by Stonehenge staff and has been making personal appearances since 2016. Nobody had told us so we were surprised and delighted, no one more than Bill who travelled to Hungary in 2019 to see their bustards who were very shy and only to be viewed though high powered lenses!
And the 4-5 thousand year monument… Since we last visited you can no longer touch the stones and some of the stones have been re-erected giving a better idea of how it might once have been. The circulation of visitors has been changed so that you can get the full visual impact without people getting in your way.
Making a Mountain?
The little men in velvet jackets have been busy over winter and the sheep have eaten most of the grass and gone home to lamb.
So it’s time to get in the jolly giant to rake the molehills.
There, that’s better — that’ll soon grass over. Note the newly laid hedge!
One hour later!
What is the point?
April Fool’s Birdwatch!
Here’s the little plover.
Batten down the hatches of the hide as the snow blasts in.
Ten minutes later:–
Housing Scheme for Fly Catchers
Our friends from the Species Habitat Protection Group have turned their attention to the sad lack of properly constituted tree holes in our woodland — a flaw underlined in our recent ecology survey.
They are particularly keen to promote the habitat of pied flycatchers which already nest in our deficient holes — the oak trees are just too young (unlike the humans involved) — not gnarly and creviced enough!
We have it on authority that the pied flycatchers are due back from Africa tomorrow so, as always on our land, there was an imperative! Jan, Jon and Roger arrived this morning with 12 new nest boxes and got them up in the nick of time.
Ready for the arrival of our little avian orcas.
On their behalf I’d like to thank Jan, Jon and Roger and we look forward to more of these beautiful little birds nesting here in future.
You don’t have to be a genius…
You don’t have to be a genius.. Published by Clinical Press (Bristol UK) ISBN 978-1-85-457108-3
Get your copy from the Great Oak Bookshop, Llanidloes, Powys, SY18 6BW. United Kingdom
New Book out next month!
I chose this cover picture which shows me in the raw — not at all the way I feel today — the book recounts the reasons why — all the bizarre experiences and formative encounters. The dodgy characters and extraordinary situations proffered by a medical education in the sixties. How the world has changed!
Winter Watching in Wales
From the Cambrian Mountains looking across the Dyfi valley at the peaks of Snowdon peeping above the early morning mist — we get an early start to our winter bird watching with a brilliant bright day in January and a visit to Ynes Hir RSPB reserve on the estuary.
Still crisp –1/2 an hour later!
As the sun creeps under the mist — not much about but we are not complaining as we have already had a glimpse of a lesser spotted woodpecker and as we look out over the salt marshes with our backs to the woodland we still hear its drumming. There are the usual culprits by the river bank –a single little egret and a bunch of herring gull and scattered canada geese. But what have we here?
The beauty of nature watching is that there is always something new — even in mid-winter.
Another day the Hafren forest is quiet but the massive trees give an aura of magic as the light from some subtle thinning illuminates the mossy floor.
In the Hafren Forest, Mid-Wales there is the high pitched seeping of the tiny flitting goldcrests which is suddenly underscored by a lower pitched pipping — initially a long way off but growing ever closer, up in the canopy — could it be a flock of feeding crossbills?
Here they are — difficult to photograph against the winter light. Chattering to each other as they wrestle with the largest fir cones to extract the seeds with their tin-opener beaks. The male breasts glowing orangey/pink, while the females are green.
Walking back by the side of the river there is a dipper.
Driving down the Severn to Llanidloes to pick up our bread there is a bird feeder, overhanging the road, it is festooned with siskin, small green stripey birds, hanging like grapes.
Most recently we ventured up, out of the sheltered valley, onto the exposed hilltop, not far away but a different world.
It was bleak but beautiful up there overlooking the mountain tarns. There were fieldfare feeding on the close cropped pasture and teal, coot and goldeneye on the lake with 7 goosander, saw-bill fishing ducks. Hovering on the wind above was a huge buzzard, circled by a red kite. At a lower level a kestrel winged its way between two telegraph poles.
Squirrel Wars!
Yesterday Hefin came and fixed our roof. A squirrel had found a hole in the soffit(the timber under the eves) and had moved into the roof space above the bathroom for the winter months. It was disturbing Bill as he cleaned his teeth, by moving its furniture around in its garret, reorganizing the insulation and planning to rewire the electricity. Something had to be done —
— while squirrel was busy stealing the bird’s peanuts, Hefin sealed up the hole!
Today I was sitting in the bathroom contemplating the infinite when I was disturbed by the sound of someone dragging a concrete block across the roof. I rushed downstairs adjusting my clothes and burst out of the front door, ran around the house in time to see it. Evicted squirrel was perched on the roof above the mended soffit grasping the edge of the corner most roof-slate with both his little hands and heaving with all his might. I screamed. He paused and looked down at me enquiringly without releasing his grip on the slate. I yelled, I picked up a stick and beat the side of the house. He made a snap decision, stopped his attempted incursion and leapt the 8 feet into the nearest tree. Aha! So that is how he gets up!
So here we are again in the land of imperatives. Not for us a good read or a spot of light editing with out feet up. We spent the morning up the slithery bank mindful of all the historical figures who have fallen to their death from trees. Wielding Great-granny’s Edwardian long-tom and our state-of-the-art long handled clippers and pruning saw, we have removed the treacherous elder that was allowing squirrel to leap across onto our roof.
Transporting the brushwood to the heap we notice that the rickety sheep fence where it crosses the stream has, in our recent absence been busy turning itself into a dam by weaving sticks and leaves into itself and catching lots of silt. The whole construction now being frozen solid and ready to stand up to the force of the water when next in flood until inevitably it will collapse allowing the water to flow down the valley and the sheep to flow up into our precious re-wilding habitat.
Another imperative! To stand up to my reconditioned knees in freezing water and demolish the half built dam.
It’s good to be home!
How do you see yourself?
I have a new book coming out soon so have updated my author page on Amazon. Here is the picture I chose — an image by Spencer Means (CC BY-SA 2.0) which shows me, or someone very like me, in the 16th century.
It shows how I often feel much more accurately than would a 15 year old studio photo. Don’t be put off — whatever I write is tempered with good-humour, not jokes but amusement and affection.
As a worn out family doctor I retired with my late husband to another world and in new places one notices things — in Mid-Wales I started to write. My friends were painfully honest and sent me off to university to learn how to do it better. My first book, ‘Iolo’s Revenge’ was published in 2018 about our adventures.
My new book ‘You don’t have to be a genius…’ comes out soon and tells how an ordinary, dyslexic but buoyant girl navigates another new world, that of adolescence, adult life and medical education. In the 1950s and 60s she was hardly a trail blazer but certainly looked at things from a new angle.
One of my daughters commented, ‘You raise a lot of issues, Mum, which, surprisingly, are even more relevant today!
