Streaming or Screaming?

At this time of year, Dad is glued to Springwatch on BBC2; lots of footage of birds rearing babies in their nests, foxes, badgers, otters, the Island of Islay etc etc. The Beeb also lay on a service where they run webcams on various nests and you can stream the action live, 24/7 into your PC. So Mum decided to have a click around and see what was on offer.

She's been studying, so Haggis and I were crashed out on the put-me-up bed. Mum found a Jackdaw nest, where all was quiet, as 3 replete, sated baby Jackdaws were sleeping silently. Thinking there was something wrong with the sound track, Mum tweaked up the volume. Just then Mum-Jackdaw came back and the chicks awoke and started such a catawauling crescendo of raucous noise, H and I were up, leppin' off the bed and charging down the stairs a-woofing and carrying on, with Mum yelling "Oy! Silly dogs!, It's only me and the PC! It's on here!".

Tonight had us glued to the TV downstairs,as a bit of footage of foxes, making that all-too-familiar noise that usually has us going tearing down the garden , this time has us racing round the living room to find where the foxes are hiding. Today's pics show me glued to Bill Oddie and Kate Humble, with the second pic showing a fox in a garden. In this case it's about to be whacked by a tawny owl on it's rump.

Entertainment.

Deefs

Aerobatics

We are looking out of the spare bedroom this morning while Dad's dressing for work, and the Sparrowhawk decides to put on a superb display of aerial manouvring. Starting at the fence down to our left, by the neighbour's pyracantha, she shoots across the garden, then turns hard left and down following the steps line, under the jasmine arbour. She pulls up hard in front of the Paulownia tree, then curves hard left again back into a dive, under the wooden arch with the yellow rose on it, back up the steps line and banks hard right back onto the fence.

It's fantastic to watch - I knew the hawk family were known for their manouvrability, jinking between the trees in dense woodland - all be it she doesn't catch anything this time. Then she sees us looking and is gone - across the garden and the Angel Betty's garden and out of sight. Wish I could fly like that! I'd be able to get those pesky squirrels for sure!

After the Bank Holiday (of course), the sun comes out. Dad's relieved, as he's in the 2CV today (driving 2CV's in the rain = wet knees.). We get a gently walk through the allotments where the rain has swelled the broad beans, so Dad stops to pick a huge carrier bag full, including some for the "Mulchman" (another blogger). While this happens I'm on a "restraining order" (Asbo would be proud of me!), due to my keen-ness fopr trampling through everyone's seed beds (allegedly). For restraining order read "lead tied to a fence post while Dad picks beans"

Have a good 'un

ps I wonder if Ellie has had her trip to the poodle-parlour yet? Oh and rumour tells of Archie being shouted at for being full length down a muddy hole he'd dug in the border on a wet day - only his tail visible. Responding to the shout he ran back indoors and then, thinking he was going to be told off he avoided Old-Dad by running in playful circles round the living room table, scattering half the garden across the carpet. Bet he was popular!

Deefs

Stormy Reculver

We 2CV it (rather bravely, I thought!) to Reculver, where-at the waves are smashing white spray in across the car park, and the wind is blowing beigey coloured foam up the beach, to build up in the lee of shingle banks till gusts whip it up over the top of the sea wall, and the dog-walkers, like a blizzard. I know we are meant to be hardy Scottish Highland dogs but come on, fair's fair! Still -we avoid the rain , managing to squeeze our hour and a half in between two concerted efforts at rain.

Mum and Dad have been missing the garden's regular 2006 sparrow-hawk, who'd zoom in across the waste ground behind the house, hedge-hopping over the fence or the beech and exploding among the feeding sparrows or starlings, sometimes successfully, sometimes not. She'd (it's a female one) then pause briefly in the tall Paulownia (Foxglove tree) (or once on the bird feeder!) looking for all the world as if she was saying "Curses! Foiled again!", before whipping away back to the trees across the waste ground. You'd know if there'd been a successful kill while we were out, as there'd be the tell tale "remains", a 2-3 foot diameter circle of plucked feathers and just the beak and forehead skull-bone of the victim. They don't waste much!

But since the building works had started, the ground cleared and the diggers moving about, we'd not seen her, so we guessed the new activity didn't suit her, and she'd moved on. But now she's back, and yesterday we spotted her resting in the Paulownia again, before scything off through the sheeting rain. Magnificent.

By the way. Mum has bought a new head for the toothbrush, so I'm hoping I'm forgiven.

Have a good Bank Holiday

Deefer

Flying School

The humans have gone mad this weekend, pruning everything that they could get their secateurs round (and sawing things they couldn't) - the myrtle, the flowering cherry, beech hedge, jasmine, choysia (not sure of the spelling of that one!) and the guelder rose. Whole builders bags of tree were taken to the tip. More plants arrived and bags of very dig-able shredded bark mulch. We are transformed.

The garden is a veritable flying school of brown baby starlings and fluffy sparrow fledgelings. It had also gone suspiciously quiet around the bluetit box (no parent birds swearing at anyone who went near the compost bins) so Dad checked and , indeed, the babies have successfully flown. That made Dad also check the "dunnock" box near the holly tree, now well secluded among burgeoning clematis. Sadly, an abandonned nest with cold eggs - and not (as we'd thought, dunnock (blue), but three white eggs flecked with red/brown, of robins. Gulp! Presumably the nest which would have been incubated by the mother robin I "terminated" on 20th April. Mum is therefore muttering darkly "There Deefs - not ONE robin but FOUR!". The evil that Westies do lives after them... the good is often interr-ed with their bones......

Rain rain and more rain today. Must be the Bank Holiday!

Deefs

Exhibit A

I have been convicted once more on the thinnest of grounds. My photo is of "Exhibit A" as produced by the Counsel for the Prosecution, to whit, one electric toothbrush, chewed. M'Lud! What does that prove. "Deefer ...... (sonorous resounding tones) .... you are an habitual criminal who accepts arrest as an occupational hazard, and presumably regards enprisonment in the same casual manner....."

I mean, Gor Blimey Mary Poppins - just coz ....

a) It was chewed
b) It had been at pup level on the charger
c) The bits were all in my bed
d) I chew stuff
e) They end up in my bed in bits

I do not feel this is grounds for suspicion, never mind conviction. Mum will not cuddle me tonight - "Go away! You ate my Toothbrush!"

Meanwhile, the garden is a flying school for dozens of baby starlings. Dad was wondering how come the suet blocks on the bird feeder went down so quickly. Mum pointed out that there were three baby starlings lined up along the top, and a parent bird clinging to the mesh, ripping bits off and passing them the 2 inches up to the babies. Hardly a struggle for survival. Not quite, wresting a living from the parched ground. Not nature red in tooth and claw, birds clinging onto life by the skin of their teeth.

Mind you, the humans can't talk. I think we're on the venison steaks tonight on the terrace. If they're lucky it won't tank down with rain. We'll be lucky if we see any. I don't know. The way they treat convicts these days - it's criminal

Have a great weekend

Deefs

The Dog Shelf

When most people talk about the "dog shelf" they generally mean the floor, but we really have one - look! All the best Terrace/Patio tables have a shelf, it seems, and that's where I've taken to resting while the humans eat and chat. Keeps me that bit closer to the food smells.

They're out there again tonight as the dusk falls, watching the antics of (they are sure) a huge stag beetle manouvring clumsily and slowly about on the wing. They also have a Bat Detector, which they set to 50 kHz, and then listen to the squarks, buzzes, clicks, squelches and farts of the bat sonar, as the wee beasties wheel and flit, dive, turn and loop between the bay tree and the house. Or is it just an excuse to sit out in the warm evening with a Metaxa ?

Oh - I am told I have "come on" though I don't know for sure what that means. I am 8 months and a week.

Weekend's a-coming in

Deefs

Chillin' on the Terrace

Is it my Birthday? The cats got left over huss for breakfast, and we got raw pork-ribs for supper. Then it was an evening for chilling on the terrace, watching the humans eat roast chicken and French bread - so we knew we'd get some rib-cagey, spinal bits in our bowls afterwards.

A good evening too for meeting new and old friends on the Rec. We had a nice charge around with a lovely black Shih-Tzu called Farley, said Hello to a young-at-heart spaniel called Barney-Boy (who meg and Haggis have known since they were all pups, and who still hasn't slowed down). We met a lovely collie x German Shepherd called Rox, and we met again the gorgeous smoky-grey German Shepherd pup "Star". Lovely evening for promenading - just like the Rec was originally used for...... perhaps a bit more boisterous!

Deefs