What Did You Do Today (2016)

[JAParticipant @ja]

Clive

Lesser Spotted Woodpeckers, ain't you lucky.

How are the bees?

JA

[DodParticipant @dod]

Posted by Mike on 29/04/2016 14:57:53:

Come to my home village on the Moray Firth near the Spey mouth if you want to see jackdaws. When I first came to the village over 20 years ago there were no magpies in the North of Scotland. Now there are many of the pests – to the detriment of songbirds.

Dallachy? We got half a dozen jackdaws and assorted other birds

Still you can see lots of dolphins in the sea.

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

Hello JA,

Sadly the bees are having a hard go of it, the weather has delayed the Blossoms and the cold has held them in the hives and they have not developed very much brood at all. Tuesday last I was down the hives and they were working the Pear blossom, not for nectar but for pollen, the bees protein. Nectar does not flow until there has been three days above 68 F. Bumble bees are flying as they will fly below !0 C. But not so many this year.

The national bee Unit that oversees bee research has issued an urgent warning to beekeepers to start feeding the bees with sugar water to help the starvation situation. Because of the mild winter the bees have been active and in doing so consume vital stores much quicker. I have in other years taken swarms by this time of the year. I have had candy on the hives for 2 months now.

An interesting observation is that the Crows and Magpies have built their nests quite high in the trees, an old folklore saying is that that indicates a fine summer, we hope!

Clive. My seedling Toms were frosted off last week in the greenhouse.

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

Hi Dod: Not far off – go one village to the east of Nether Dallachy.

[Martin CottrellParticipant @martincottrell21329]

Here in Somerset we have a resident "charm" of Goldfinches & regular visits to the feeders by Greenfinches, Siskins, Long Tail tits along with all the other usual garden visitors. In the early spring we had regular visits from a pair of Nuthatches for a couple of weeks and we are also very lucky to get visits to the fat block feeder by a Greater Spotted Woodpecker.

Norman, we too have had visits from Jackdaws over the last couple of weeks which we haven't seen before.

Martin.

[DodParticipant @dod]

Posted by Mike on 29/04/2016 21:43:46:

Hi Dod: Not far off – go one village to the east of Nether Dallachy.

Upper? Surely no the place a spy landed in WW2

[charadamParticipant @charadam]

Here in Wem we have jackdaws.

There is folklore that a dear, sweet old lady released a breeding pair 50 years back

All I can say is that, in clearing the 6 flues in our 1860 house (blocked in 1960/70 "improvements&quot I removed 26 wheelbarrow loads of nesting and other detritus.

Don't like jackdaws!

Edited By charadam on 29/04/2016 22:54:48

[NJHParticipant @njh]

I have been watching a pair of Jackdaws nest building in my neighbours barn – they don't seem very good at it! They have been selecting twigs which are far too large for the opening and they then fiddle around trying, for some time, to get them in. Finally they discard the twig and go off to find another unsuitable example!

Norman

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

Yes, Dod. There were two spies actually, met by a mysterious Mata Hari woman. It's all written up on a plaque down by the harbour. A German sea plane put them down in the Moray Firth and they paddled ashore in an inflatable boat.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

My personal view is that de-0cluttering is an awful virus that should be resisted in all ways possible.

That said, today I managed to fill a bin bag with old clothes, one with waste paper etc. from my 'office' and even nearly filled one in my workshop. With a bin and a half of bits from ripping out a sink unit and the boxes of things that are not going to be returned, I'm off to the womble-unit soon

I just hope this is a passing phase!

Neil

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

On the subject of Woodpeckers …

Here are a couple of photos from 2012, of one raiding my neighbour's BirdBox.

… Yes that's the leg of a Blue-Tit in its beak

… Followed by the rest.

MichaelG.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Now if it was a magpie there would be a clamour for it to be shot!

Remarkable photos, Michael.

Neil

[Clive HartlandParticipant @clivehartland94829]

I think I would run out of ammo around here as there are so many Magpies, they raided a Blackbirds nest last yer and took all the nestlings. There were 11 in the garden one morning during the mid winter.

Clive

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

A sound-moderated .410 with subsonic ammo is useful in gardens….

[Mark P.Participant @markp]

No.3 garden gun!
Mark P.

[MikeParticipant @mike89748]

Yes, Mark, but the ammo can be hard to come by these days and, as far as I know, nobody does a sound-moderated version like the Hushpower .410s.

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

A few days ago we heard somebody knocking on our patio doors, but no-one was there.

Then it was repeated a few minutes later, again, no-ne there.

And again, a few minutes later still, someone knocking on the patio doors. This time we spied a very large black bird (feathered variety! – a crow or a rook) flying off. Apparently, at this time of year they, whatever bird it was, gets jealous of potential rivals and attacks them and this bird thought the reflection of itself it was seeing on the glass was a rival. They – it – had made the window filthy, with their spit I presume. He's not been back thank goodness, they can do quite some damage to the window frame and seal apparently.

Chris

[Bernard WrightParticipant @bernardwright25932]

I've been under the weather this last month, so had a play in the workshop.

I made myself a 40INT – ER40 chuck to help reduce height problems encountered on my miller.

The bought MT3 model even when used in a shop made MT3 adaptor, would have been even longer.

I have quite a few large stub drills I've reduced the shank down to 3/4", to drill in tight spots, MT drills are usually too long for the headroom I have.

I used some En24T for the chuck body, as it's hard wearing and machines lovely.

[“Bill Hancox”Participant @billhancox]

Posted by Bernard Wright on 01/05/2016 00:53:31:

I've been under the weather this last month, so had a play in the workshop.

Bernard

'Tis nice to here that you are feeling up to shop work again. A very nice job. I definitely agree with your points on MT drills. Stub drills are definitely handy on shorter lathes.

[modeng2000Participant @modeng2000]

We had a robin that kept attacking it's reflection in our patio window. The mess on the sill was something to be seen, I didn't know the bird could make so much poo!

The solution was to place a sheet of clingfilm on the inside of the glass at the bottom of the window to spoil the reflection and with that the problem went away, or rather the bird did.

Tried the silouette bird shapes on the glass but they had no effect.

John

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Well Martin

" Norman, we too have had visits from Jackdaws over the last couple of weeks which we haven't seen before."

Interesting – we are in Mid Devon – which is not too far from you – and I certainly hadn't seen Jackdaws before. Seems they are spreading!

Norman

 

Edited By NJH on 01/05/2016 11:23:35

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, I heard some continuous tapping and flapping of wings in the a corner of my garden many years ago, when I went to investigate, I saw a blackbird fighting himself in an old mirror that I'd chucked out. That bird did fly off when I approached it, but came back time again. Managed to creep up close enough to get a photo.

Another time I was watching a bird attacking itself in my cars overtaking mirror, I guess it was losing the fight with the amount of poo down the side of the car door.

Regards Nick.

[MuzzerParticipant @muzzer]

We had hours of fun with a pheasant that decided our garden was his. A pheasant-sized mirror caused countless attacks of jealous outrage. This went on for weeks or possibly months and of course they are so unutterably stupid they never catch on. Looked like hard work, mind!

As for crows, many cities have their own bird problem eg starlings, pigeons etc. In Vancouver it is crows – many tens of thousands of them preparing to roost in the late afternoon, on every ledge, window, telephone wire, rooftop etc. Real life Hitchcock stuff. Our building was a wooden, West Coast single story construction with flat roof and when the crows landed each day you could hear them scratching about for a couple of hours up there. They were also very protective and would mob and drive away massive sea eagles which can't manoeuvre at close range.

Murray

[DodParticipant @dod]

Any pheasant comes into my garden gets caught by one of our cats and if we get to it quickly enough it gets eaten by my future ex-wife and myself – the cat gets the giblets.

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

Dod – "future ex-wife" – are you planning a divorce or one of you expecting to peg it some time soon? Odd phrase, I couldn't get away with that – not in one piece anyway, my present wife would kill me!

Chris

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