Jackdaws

Jackdaw

At the home we moved to a couple of years back, just before I was taken seriously ill, we see far fewer smaller birds.  They are around, but don't seem to be attracted to the bird table or nut feeders. We also see no squirrels.  We get a reasonable number of small birds in the garden and nearby such as dunnocks (hedge sparrows), great tits and blue tits, robins etc. Maybe they visit other bird tables or find food naturally very locally?

Our nut feeders seem to attract larger birds in the main like pigeons and collared doves. We have lots of trees and other cover in the garden and nearby.

Every morning at much the same time we get jackdaws on the bird table. We have red legged partridges in the road most days and we have even had mallard ducks in the garden.

See http://www.rspb.org.uk/discoverandenjoynature/discoverandlearn/birdguide/name/j/jackdaw/ .

Football playoffs

If Norwich win against Middlesborough in the Championship playoff final they could be back in the Premier League next season. Quite a few hoops to jump through though but a win against local rivals Ipswich must give them hope.

No such luck for League 2 team Plymouth Argyle who were beaten by Wycombe Wanderers for a place in the League 2 playoff final. Still, they did well this season and I wish them well in the next.

See http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/32670810 .

Swallows, swifts and house martins

In the last week the skies have changed. Summer migrant birds are everywhere now but even a week ago they were harder to spot. Screaming swifts are a sure sign of late spring and summer and bring joy to the heart.

Ebola - out of the news?

Have you noticed that the deadly disease Ebola is no longer in the news? This started to cease to be newsworthy around Christmas last year.  I guess the BBC decided there were more important issues like Nigel Farage, he says with a great deal of sarcasm.

The disease is still present in some West African nations but others have reported no new cases in some time now. I think the world was late to "wake up" to the real dangers of this condition. Luckily, it managed to be contained in West Africa, in the main. It could have spread so easily to western nations and been a real public health catastrophe.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola_virus_epidemic_in_West_Africa .

Churches blog updated

See http://eachurches.blogspot.co.uk/ .

Today we visited North Norfolk and called in at Cley and Wiveton churches. I have updated the churches blog with Cley church. Wiveton church will be added shortly. A few more images will also be added later.

Lawns cut

Today I managed to cut both our front and rear lawns and drink a can of "Old Speckled Hen" beer.  In the past this would have been trivial, but since the cerebellum brain bleed this is an achievement, especially as I needed no breaks whilst doing them. Mind you, I was pretty tired by the end.

Most of the blossom has now gone - so ephemeral - but the Californian lilac is in flower as is next door's lilac bush.  I expect both will soon be gone!

Spelling

One of the after-effects of my cerebellum brain bleed seems to be an inability to quickly spot spelling mistakes. In the end I tend to notice these, but often long after an email has been sent. As an example, I had "an" instead of "am" in an email sent this afternoon. It really is not that important, but I seem slower to pick up this sort of mistake than before.