Great tits.

A lovely morning..the young Great / Blue tits are wittering in the tree and the parents are in and out for food for um. A joy to watch and a surprise that we have so many survivors owing to the amount of flea ridden cats stalking about..mind you a few well placed missiles helps!

We do well with the species of wildlife we attract here at Barnze Towers..Most of it down to the lovely Mrs Bs planting and planning of the garden, Mind you not many frogs n toads this year but still time for them to make an appearance. Grunt the hedgehog has been out most evenings clearing up the slugs n snails and it is good to see him fatten up each time we see him!

Not many squirrel’s about though but they only pop in on rare occasions due to there being plenty of food about for um and the fox ain’t been seen for months???

Anyroad i’m off for a chill down there among the bird and bees..Have a good one you lot!

 

A falcon brill day.

Let me tell ya a bit about our day hunting with the hawks eh?

As we stood waiting at the arraigned spot a chap came out of the woods,introduced himself and guided us in. in less than five minutes we had gloves on and after being told how to stand to allow the birds to come to us a huge owl came out of the trees and landed on Mrs Bs hand. it was brill to see such a large bird land with grace on her fist.after a bit of of a walk through the woods we came upon the site where we were going to be based..A clearing with a table and a few perches for the birds..Then off to the falconers van to collect the birds.two Harris Hawks (Biggles and Dicky) A peregrine falcon (Jess) a Saker falcon whose name i forget, and the owl,a Bengal Eagle owl…

The morning was spent getting the birds to come to our hands and learning about the history of falconry Oh and tying the falconers knot.All in a very interesting time.After lunch (With some very nice homemade soup) we took out the Harris Hawks and went out into the fields for some hunting sadly all we got was a crow with a manky wing but it was good to see the birds at work,And our dog for the day Boris did a brill job of flushing out all he could including the midges that bit the fuck out of us.

By the end of the day we were tired but well chuffed.Bad news is my camera card buggered up so i lost over a 100 pictures.Arse! All in a brilliant day out that i can recommend to anyone who likes to get amongst nature at its rawest. Go on give it a go!

Anyroad it’s time for me to bugger off and enjoy the public holiday with the lovely Mrs B , Perhaps a walk is in ouder if the weather stays nice.

Have a good one and take care out there.

 

Down the Grove.

        

We made it down the grove yesterday,a nice morning for it unall,Nice to get right into nature down there & we found a nice spot for a glass of wine & a bite to eat with just the birdsong to listen to it soon got us well chilled out. The bad news was that the conversion work on Clifton Hall has taken a lot of the trees down,they even lobbed the cut down ones over the cliffs onto the banks…TWATS!

The top photo is the way down from the village onto the bottom of the Trent Valley,a nice walk down but a bit of a bugger coming back up.

Onec down to the bottom it’s a 20 minuite stroll along a leafy tree lined path brings you to Holme Pit         

A large pond full of wildlife,Mallards,Coots,Swans,Squrrels etc,a nice place to just sit and soak up some peace i reckon.Then if you want you can get onto the banks of the Trent though what with it being a bit cold and it being exposed we dint hang about down ther for long,Nice in the summer though!

A nice few hours down there blows the shite right out of your head leaving you tired but feeling good,We got back in time for me to make us a nice curry for dinner & what with a couple more bottles of wine we went to bed happy.

I realy hope that you have access to a bit of countryside to get into,It’s one of the great things about Hood Town i reckon,we are never to far away from some peace n quiet,And the odd bit of horse shit,And you can always bung that in a bag and take it home for the garden.

       

Take care & have a good one.