#trees nature gardenbirds robin flowers squirrel

[sussex-nature-lover]

Sunday 4 December 2022

Much Colder - Heading into Winter

A morning sunrise showing the old windmill in Sandhurst, Cranbrook - as contributed by Maggie M to the local Next Door app

Isn’t that a glorious image, it could be a still life painting.

To stave off the chilly air we’ve been lighting the stove in the early afternoon: this is what it looks like when it first gets going and then we turn it down to a low burn.

The walking stick you can see at the side of the fireplace is one of my late Dad’s, he had a few. He liked to collect the little metal shields from places my parents visited on their travels and they are down both sides of the stick. I think my favourites are from Dawlish in Devon and a very similar one from Cornwall. Those two are much more elaborate than the others, taking the form of stags’ heads with wreaths of leaves below and a small coloured shield set in the middle.

Most of the trees on this side of the garden have lost their leaves now, except for the beech, which is turning from a deep aubergine to the bronze you can see here and the hazel opposite the side window. ‘Doug’ the Christmas tree is sheltering - should have moved him there much sooner as his compost is very soggy.

The oak, below, still clings on to its golden orange display, but the high trees in the woods are pretty skeletal now and all the birds’ nests have been revealed again.

There’s a slightly different view from a bathroom window, the big trees in the woods look much closer than they really are.

A couple of other sights through the window, that I really wouldn’t have expected to see in December, are pink flowers still on the roses at the side, just along from the hazel and on a fuchsia in one of the tubs. Amazing, especially when you consider the monsoon weather they’ve withstood.

Apologies for the lack of clarity - must be window cleaning time again

I’ve heard other people say numbers are down at their feeders and while I’ve got to be honest and say that we haven’t been spending much time in the kitchen like we usually do, so we haven’t been observing, the food is certainly being replenished frequently and this morning I saw a great variety of visitors.

blue tits sharing nicely with a house sparrow

Both male (above) and female  (below) great spotted woodpeckers are enjoying the suet balls. They often come at the same time although not actually interacting as a pair at all

We also seem to have more grey squirrels again and they’ve been extremely busy burying acorns in the lawn, no doubt a fair few of them will make a reappearance eventually.

Inspector Pritchard is still coming every day, but not spending so much time hanging around. He’s apparently set up camp in K’s greenhouse, but he does like a little variety in diet, so he makes his rounds. I tried to get a decent photo of how his tail feathers are growing in, but he wasn’t being very cooperative. They’re definitely touching the ground again though, so doing well.

We had chaffinches, quite a few long tailed tits, a solitary magpie, starlings and blackbirds and of course, our little robin friend. I don’t know if this is the same one who visited us in the front porch yesterday. We were stood talking to two guys who’d made a delivery here and the robin flew to the wisteria and sat there serenading us for quite a long time. It was just like having a personal performance and a really lovely experience.

#trees nature gardenbirds robin flowers squirrel #woodpecker