Computer issues, birdwatching and painting

That horrible feeling that hits you when the computer throws a wobbly and you suddenly realise it isn't going to come back.

And not just any computer (we are lucky enough to have a very beat-up laptop in the house and a very old computer sitting in one of the spare rooms). No, this is the Work Computer.

Every document I use was on that computer, and they have been developed individually by me for my business. My logo, accounts and childminding paperwork. Then there are the scores & scores of other documents from every conceivable childcare source that I filed away for reference. And photographs. Nightmare.

The diagnoses was a hard drive failure, thankfully everything was retrievable. And so I have a new computer and everything is back to normal...except it will not allow me to upload photo's to my blog. So this is coming to you via the very beat-up laptop that is literally held together by a clamp.....

 

 

 

I looked out of the window today and saw a Blackcap. I'm talking birds here. I don't ever remember seeing one before so I rushed to take a photo of it while it ate the purple berries of the Callicarpa bush. The photo was blurry, my work camera isn't designed for that kind of photography, its great for observation photo's as I can print directly from the camera, but low light or small birds in the distance is not its strong point.

 

Living here on the edge of the village means we do get a good variety of birds visit the garden, and I do enjoy feeding them.

 

 

you might just be able to make out the starling on the window feeder

I was visiting a childminding friend way back in the Spring when I first saw birds actually using a window feeder. Previously to that I had dismissed them as a gimmick after buying one for my mother-in-law and her saying she hadn’t had a single bird visit it. But then I couldn’t resist buying a little cup feeder from shop in Hay-on-Wye, not because I thought the birds would use it but because I thought it looked sweet.

The birds didn’t use it, and it fell off the glass.

But remembering my visit to my friends and watching half a dozen starlings squabbling over the raisins she was putting in her feeder I thought I would try again, this time with a different model. I found quite a selection of sturdy looking feeders on a well known online store and it arrived within a week.

I still wasn’t entirely sure that the birds would use it but I attached it to the playroom window, and to tempt the birds close I bought a tub of dried mealworms. I also hung a feeder from the small hibiscus tree that sits close to the house.

Within a day the starlings found the window feeder. They don't seem put off by the children pointing and running up to the window at all, even though the playroom is a conservatory with floor to ceiling windows.
I'm lucky that we have a fairly large garden and we have room for a bird table in the wild garden and another bird feeding station half way up the garden. We have the usual birds visit: great tits, blue tits, starlings, blackbirds, robins, sparrows, dunnocks, magpies, greenfinch, chaffinch and long-tailed tits. We have also had yellowhammers that look for all the world like budgies from a distance. We also have squirrels. They sit on top of the wooden post which holds all the feeders and help themselves to the birdfood. They also dig up the grass to bury cob nuts. The children like to watch them and I must admit they are comical little things even though I know some people class them as vermin.