Stunning Monday.

A lovely walk this morning, quite windy but stunning weather otherwise.

A tunnel through the trees..

Fungi on fallen tree trunks.

The sun reflecting on the sea

Blue sky meets blue sea.

The lighthouse in the distance.

Pink cherry blossom.

So pretty.

Sitting watching and listening today to the birds, and the bees, the sound of the ocean... the wind through the trees.

I saw my first Goldfinch in this garden today.

He wanted to have a drink.  I wish I had a bird bath, as it was a bit difficult for him/her.

Mrs Blackbird though knew about the frog ramp and went down that to have a bath and splash around.

She isn't silly that is for sure.

A crow spent some time in the garden as well, wanting a drink from the pond.

Stunning orange!

I'm wondering if people would be interested in reading more words than I normally write?  Today I started writing down my observations of what I could see, hear and feel while sitting in my garden seat.  I'm going to try and continue doing this.  If I though people might be interested I could type it up to add it to a blog post...but it might be too wordy!

Bird Watch: Week One

Spring is a good time for watching birds, and I have decided to try and keep a record of birds seen etc... each week.

April 7th.  Filled up bird feeders  - my husband bought me three new bird feeders for the garden for my birthday.  We also put  two bird boxes back up that had fallen down last year.

17.20 - saw first bumble bee of the year.

Birds seen:  Blue Tit, Great Tit, Blackbird, Dunnocks

April 8th:  8.40am:  Birds Seen; Dunnock (2), Chaffinch, Robin, Blackbird (Mr).  A pair of Wood Pigeons courting, a Jay - great to see this, as we haven't seen one for a few years.   Goldfinch, Blue Tits, Dunnocks.

Lovely to see both the Chaffinch and Robin foraging for food together.

(Photos taken through a mucky patio window, so not the best.  Must clean now the weather is a bit brighter...or will I be jinxing the weather?)

April 9th:  Birds Seen:  Goldfinch, Blackbirds, Wood Pigeons, Blue Tits, Great Tit, Dunnocks.

April 10th;  Wood Pigeons courting, Blue Tits, Blackbirds, Jay, Robin, Dunnocks.

April 11th:   Wood Pigeons, Jay, Blue Tits, Dunnocks, Blackbirds,

April 12th:  Wood Pigeons, Blackbird (Mr), Robin, Blue Tits, Goldfinches, Dunnocks.

April 13th:  Robin, Mrs Blackbird, Blue Tits, Wood Pigeons, Dunnock.

April 14th:  Blackbird (Mrs)  Blue Tits.  Out most of today so didn't see so many birds today, although woke to lovely bird song this morning.

Gold Finches

Glancing out our rather dirty patio window today I was delighted to see a couple of beautiful Gold Finches visiting the bird feeders again.  The murky wet and damp weather must have brought them in.

The photos aren't brilliant, I had to zoom in quite a bit to take the shots, and it is pretty gloomy out there, but they give a good idea of how pretty these birds are.

Sunday visitors and a slice of cake.

Imagine my delight this morning when I saw we had some more Goldfinch visitors to our bird feeder.

The news is obviously getting around and these birds are so lovely and colourfu.

It really was a delight to watch them.

I tried a new cake recipe the other day posted on a blogger friend's page.  It is very tasty - the only thing I should have done was use a bigger cake tin as I didn't have enough room for the topping, so had to transfer it to another tin and have it poured over more like icing.  But it still worked.

The recipe can be found here.