New Things

This weekend I didn't manage to do anything exciting like go to Norfolk, so instead I cheered myself up by restocking my fish tank following a bit of neglect of late.

First up were a pair of corydoras to keep my panda company. Marvel at my amazing photography skills..


With the gradual decline of my minnows (finally) and my platys (theyre rubbish fish), I decided on trying out some guppies, for the main reason that they're supposed to be really easy to breed and that might be quite fun.


Will keep you posted as to the extent of their success, but so far I've kept the full compliment alive for 2 whole days. Hoorah!


Ram is still my favourite though, he's like the fish equivalent of a portugese friend of mine- small, cocky but entertaining.

Oh and while I was out I picked up one of these...

Should be much more reliable for all those far-flung birding trips than the blue beast :) It's much bigger than I thought, but I suppose most cars are big compared to a Ka. It's pleasingly grown-up and doesn't make any doom-filled noises as you drive along, which as far as I'm concerned is a big plus.

snow day :)

I suppose you noticed it was quite snowy today then?
I woke up to this sight and decided not to bother trying make my way across to camden, which turned out to be a good decision as the zoo was closed, with only emergency staff coming in (lions still need feeding and all that...).


Birds in the garden were performing nicely in the garden, particularly three long tailed tits who hung around all day. They can be very photogenic when they want to be... Also some very confused blackbirds hunting leaves amongst the snow, and bizarrely a blue tit checking out the nest box by the window (note to self- clean out nest box).


We ventured outside a bit later to see my grandparents, make some snow angels, chase around some ducks in the snow and build a snowman. Some awesome views of blizzardy goodness :)



We have at least 7-8 inches of snow on the ground this evening, so may well be facing snow day: the sequel tommorrow. We will see...


Meanwhile, here is a nice photo of a long tailed tit in flight :)

window birding

The best kind of birding in my opinion is from your window. Low effort, but everything you see is always a surprise. You don't really expect much more than a few starlings, a noisy woodpigeon and the odd robin, so I find pretty much anything in my garden to be hugely entertaining.

Take this little guy:


One of those WOODPECKERWOODPECKERWOODPECKER *runs upstairs and scrabbles for camera then dashes to nearest window* moments. They're pretty awesome looking things really, especially when they turn up in unexpected places.

Then this week there was this:


(credits for this go to my mum as I don't get to see our garden in daylight until the weekend...)

Now all I need is a lesser and I have the full compliment of British piciformes (ignoring wrynecks)...