Twitchering not Tweeting

Today you would have found me crawling on my hands and knees through the shrubbery, no, not making my way home from the pub or stealing items of ladies underwear from the neighbours washing line!..but twitchering....bird watching. Britain is known for its twitchers because of the huge variety of birds that come to Britain for their holidays. If we had elephants or tigers or bears over here we'd probably watch them but as we only have rabbits and worms...that feeling of danger is missing.

Armed with my trusty binoculars (courtesy of Mike and Cecil Williams from Wild Birds C.A.) and scope, I set up about 100yds from a peregrine falcon's nest. I've been observing these birds for 5years now (not continuously) and the last few weeks they have been sitting on three eggs. Monday the first egg hatched and on Tuesday the other two, so now the parents are busy feeding three chicks. This morning it looked like the peregrines had either had one hell of a pillow fight in the night or a jackdaw had been breakfast, there were black feathers everywhere. A lot of the time nothing happens but I find it fascinating and I'm comfortable there.....where my social skills are not under scrutiny!!

Please excuse the quality of the photographs but they were taken with Millie's little camera fixed to my scope with elastic bands from 100yds away. Not only do I get to see these wonderful birds but the walk home is almost as spectacular as the hills are carpeted with bluebells at this time of year. And the bird watching was not over yet. We have a small field where Andrea keeps her horse and I put up an owl box in a secluded corner four years ago. It has never been used but recently I noticed the odd twig sticking out so set up the scope again and waited....and waited....waited...and then just as the light was almost gone.......a Tawny owl flew into the box...sorry no pictures (yet) now maybe if I glued a torch to Millie's camera and then........