The Garden of Charles B

[Charles B]

I just discovered my Xiaomi Redme 11 has a camera setting 'HDR/A' which is 50 MB high deffinition! Oh, well better late than never.

Anyway here is my first photo with this setting at a distance of 4 meters to my side of the bed. It is nice to see the Great Tit and Blue Tit partaking of the bird bath in total peace instead of fighting.



I'm sitting here bandaging my left thumb after a kitchen accident cutting up cererly for this evening's Spaghetti sauce. A welcomed break for bird watching.

PS: Also see my new posting at the end of page 1.

[Willpar]

Very nice Charles.

[Charles B]

Thanks!!!

[Charles B]

The Backbirds have returned!
I only saw one Blackbird so far the entire year because the Usutu Virus killed them all off last October. But my wife just reported that when she goes to work at the hospital at 4:45 in the morning in the total darkness she sees Blackbirds already active around our street and bus stop although the sky is pitch black. Of course there are street lights, residential and industrial lighting plus traffic to navigate by. Oddly enough they never come to the back yard anymore where our garden and balcony are. The Magpies are also seltener lately. And the Ravens have moved to our town square (very fitting as it's totally dead there ).

[Willpar]

That virus is over here spreading from the southeast of the country.

[Charles B]

That virus is over here spreading from the southeast of the country.

Sorry to hear that!!! And the H5N1 'Bird Flu' has just hit poultry flocks here in Schleswig - Holstein again.

[Charles B]

Hi!
I just stocked up on bird feed as all the Blue Tits here have been eating my suet-balls like crazy plus the sunflower seed has been going twice as fast lately.

I recently installed a new, 28 cm, hexagonal feeder tray on three chains which now gives the Blue Tits a much better chance to grab sunflower seeds which the Great Tits had always dominated over in the past.

Anyway I'm down to 17 suet-balls and still have 9 kg of sunflower seed. But I need to place an order of at least 29€ to get free shipping from my feed store. Therefore I ordered 100 suet-balls (18 kg) plus another 10 kg sack of sunflower seed.

Regrettably, DHL had problems loading their little electric van today and dropped my big, 28 kg carton off at the DHL substation at the town square.

What a disaster as I don't have a car plus need a cane in my left hand. So, I'll have to take a bus there tomorrow with my wife (who thank Goodness has vaction time) and hope we can haul it on the frame of our two wheeled 'Anderson Shopper' strapped down with bungy-cords.

But getting it out of the bus is always the worst if the driver stops the bus to short of the curb!

And where are the kids with their autos??? Ha!!!

Please wish us luck!

[Linda257]

I think I would be demanding they still deliver to your home!!!

[Charles B]

I think I would be demanding they still deliver to your home!!!

Thanks for the support Linda! DHL had already dropped it off there before sending me an Email; and I was here the whole time but they made no attempt to deliver it at all. Plus I can't pick it up before 11:00 tomorrow!

The DHL substation here is located in a bankrupt butcher shop in the town and hopefully doesn't have mice!

I think I best take my home-made red wagon there:
We will have to push or pull it up and down hills for 2 km with this 28 kg load. Aye, this rig is float and can haul double that before the axle bows in. We can take her there on the bus anyway.

[Charles B]

Hey, I saw a wee coal tit ...Ooooops!!! He's a March Tit! here on my balcony feeder this morning an hour after sunrise!



It is very windy today with gale force gusts (please see my post under 'Weather') so maybe that shooed him out of a tree too somewhere. I have a hexagonal feeder tray which hangs on chains within my open air pergola structure on the balcony. Then a Blue Tit flew in and sat on the other side of the tray really making him look small in comparison. How cute!