Outside it’s 13,8 degs with rain…inside it’s Sjoerd on a break from housecleaning. It is almost 15:00 hours and that means teatime innit. I am using this opportunity to drop a line about this, that and the other. A couple of weeks ago, we planted some seeds and parked them on the bedroom windowsill. Today the windowsill looks like this: …and out on the adjacent balcony are the candidates hardening-off: A few days ago we were driven home by persistent rain showers. Directly across from the entrance gate to our complex, were the new lambs. These ones were hiding out from the rain. Once home, we vased-up some a few bluebells picked from the garden. A while ago, I wrote about one of our early mornings and the blue heron. It may sound odd to you that blue herons would be hanging about at the MacDonalds. This is the parking lot with the typical Dutch canal. You could know that it was brekkie because I am holding a milk carton. You can see the Golden Arches in the background. Yesterday whilst on a break, I was paying attention to the birds in the garden. There were blue tits, great tits, dunnocks, black birds, a crow, two long-tailed tits. Oh yes, and a putter. I can’t think of the english word for this. Eileen’s avatar shows one though. I also heard a groenling, a green woodpecker, gulls, coots and a wren. Time to go back to work now.
What a perfect place to harden your veggies. Love the flowers. You’ve reminded me of one more thing I need to transplant. Hillside to naturalize maybe. Amazing how wildlife ignores us and lives as our neighbors. Great blue herons have definitely adapted in my region. Easy pickings like fish ponds are fair game and they like so many critters and birds find living in close proximity to humans is just something they do. On a recent tour of the Seattle locks there was a rookery of heron in the trees in the city along the water.
Speaking of herons— we live right at the edge of a park and 200metres from our place there is a heron nesting place. We counted eight pair this spring nesting in the trees in february. They have young now, so walking under the tall trees is a no-no at the minute. That balcony is of a good size but those plantings take up almost half of it. It is protected on the sides and above as there is a balcony above us from the folks across the hall. Actually they have left and are selling their apartment. They were getting up in age and had some health problems.
Sjoerd the BBC haven't announced a date for Springwatch yet. It's usually around the end of May though so, hopefully, not too far away now.
