Wildlife in May

It's been a busy time in the garden for the local wildlife and every now and then it coincides with me having either my phone or camera to hand. Here are a few of this months visitors.

Winter Wildlife visitor

For the first time this winter (to our knowledge) we have had a visiting Brambling at the feeders this morning. I hope he continues to visit, they are lovely little birds.

It's Tour Time

We've been looking forward to today for months! As avid road cycling (armchair) fans we got excited when the route for this years Tour of Britain was first released. It looked suspiciously like it might be coming past our door. Then finally several weeks ago the detailed route was published and guess what? It DOES go past our door. So the planning began. Yellow marigolds were bought and planted into a load of plastic troughs we inherited from a neighbour (and don't use!) and placed on the porch roof. An old bike was sourced along with some yellow paint and my curtain fabric leftover stash was raided for some yellow lining fabric I knew I still had. 

While Mum was here we had a wet day and I had saved this job for just such a day - 30 metres of yellow bunting began to take shape.

Sunday afternoon saw a hive of activity. Lifting the bike onto the roof and putting bunting up, along with organising food and drink for a crowd. Monday turned out nice and as the first friends arrived at about 11:30am (all the way from Holland!) the party started.

Waiting in anticipation as 12:30 comes and goes - any minute now

After a few casual cyclists (who all got a very rowdy cheer), numerous marshals on motorbikes and a multitude of police motorbikes...................

The 'frenzy whipper upper' came past and announced over the loud speaker where the breakaway was and the fact that they were 3 minutes ahead of the peleton

Then The Commissar appeared 

And to huge cheers the breakaway came into view

The next part of the race seemed to be the team cars, who managed to navigate our corner upsides, when normal motorists seem to struggle to pass each other in opposing directions any other day of the week

A few minutes later, as expected the peleton appeared

Followed by an awful lot more team cars, police bikes, marshals, ambulances, fire teams, you name it! By the time they had all gone past we had made our way through the house, piled our plates, charged our glasses and spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the weather in the back garden.

Somehow I think it is unlikely The Tour will come through our little backwater another year so I'm glad we made the effort to acknowledge it this year. There always seems to be a carnival atmosphere watching them pass through - but a fine warm day made such a big difference - somehow I don't think we'd have had such a great time in the rain!

Wildlife round the clock

We know that we have regular hedgehog visits at night. Both by the droppings and the amount of cat food they are taking from our hedgehog feeding station (posh title for a box with a hole in it!) As the nights are drawing in and it is now dark at bedtime, we have seen a VERY large adult and even managed a pretty crap (it was dark), grainy picture of him/her feeding a few nights ago

The in broad daylight, while we were sitting having a cuppa mid aftternoon, Husband suddenly spotted this little chap(ess) sauntering across the garden. No more than 4" long and obviously very hungry - he was foraging for froglets and whatever else he could find by the pond. Presumably a recently independant baby who clearly needed to top up his feed levels, or why would he have been out in broad daylight?

He was not in the least concerned by my presence, so I hot footed it over to the hedgehog box and grabbed the dish of food I had just refilled ready for tonight. 

He ate and he ate and he ate. You could see his belly distending as he chomped his way through a plateful of cat food. He wandered off after about 20 minutes, only to come back again 10 minutes later and finish off what he had left. He was back again at bedtime too - unless there are more than one babies about of course. Judging by the amount of food that disappeared overnight, it looks like the adult was back too.

More signs of the breeding season this morning too. We have a pair of Red Leg Partridge who use us as a buffet all year round. Today we had a visit from 4. Unsure whether this is two parents and two young or 4 youngsters. Very difficult to tell with Partridge, but whatever, it was still nice to see them

New Neighbours

Houdini the Bull has been causing havoc locally. No respect for fences apparently, he just tramples over them and breaks into neighbouring fields Mick says. 

So Mick's gone off on his annual visit to Yorkshire show with the best of this years crop of Mule Gimmers and a couple of Leicester Shearlings. In the interest of neighbourly relations, Mick thought he'd better move the cattle before he went so they didn't break into Phillip's field again.

These are the sort of new neighbours we like.

It is always nice to have cattle in the back for a change and thankfully, so far Houdini doesn't think our fence is worth trampling!

Garden Visitors

I think this little chap wanted to share our lunch today!

Click on the video below to watch his antics...........

A Little Walk up Little Mell

It's been an amazing week of weather and we are planning to walk with Ed and Gerda tomorrow, but I can't let another glorious day slip past without getting on the fells. So having had a warm up at pilates this morning, it's time to get the walking boots out. Husband is busy painting benches and doesn't want to miss the opportunity to get them finished, so it's just me and Mummy's Little Princess and it's just a very quick walk up Little Mell Fell

As mad as ever

Blencathra across the A66

Littl Mell Summit

Too many to mention, but Ullswater and beyond

I knew it was worth keeping all those British Sugar clothes!

And relax..................................

A New Patio

 There is one part of the Garden that we haven't tackled - until now. The sceptic tank sits under a raised area, but for some reason, whoever paved it didn't recess the manholes and we were left with three almighty great slabs that were higher than the rest. An altogether useless area!

 

Other than standing things on it, it has never been any use at all

 

So finally we got round to removing the old slabs (manholes had to remain covered as we discovered they weren't even vaguely fitted)

Ready for Paul to arrive to fit recessed manholes

and then start laying new sandstone slabs

Better?

Now all we need is some (very heavy so it doesn't blow over) new garden furniture!

 

 

Just for comparison, here's the BEFORE shot again

 

and AFTER!