All happening in the sky today

So what were the carrions getting hot and bothered about while we were sat out in the garden today enjoying the late afternoon sun - it soon became evident that something was just about to kick off, and then up flew a raven -  and a dog fight ensued. so in between the wows I managed to click a few pictures

and then a buzzard made an appearance,

and if that wasn't enough we had another marsh harrier fly by too.- I can't believe it - the second marsh harrier this year!

followed by a couple of greylag geese

What a wonderful hour!

We nearly missed this - and this just missed us too!

Enjoying a leisurely morning I walked out of kitchen and spotted this crashed hot air balloon. Another half an hour and it would have been packed away without any of us noticing it.
I have no idea how long it had been there but the recovery vehicles were already there when I noticed it. It landed the other side of the common and as a previous post on this blog has already mentioned they do fly over us so I guess we had a lucky miss!!!

Marsh harrier - a rare visitor

We have only ever had a couple of sightings of marsh harrier from our garden in the sixteen years we have lived here - so today is a very special day, it is also a very cold, dark, dreary day and the marsh harrier chose to hunt the far side of the common so these pictures are not great but at least I managed to get some pictures this time!

Primroses

It may have felt like a very cold long winter but in a small patch of my garden it has been Spring since October! - that is when these primroses started flowering and they are still in flower now!

My original two clumps of primroses had produced numerous seedlings which were growing up through the 'lawn' I use that word very loosely, anyway early last summer I re -positioned some of these seedlings down one side of our small bank and now I have a wonderful show of pale yellow, this year I will plant up the other side and hope to enjoy a similar success in the Autumn.

redpoll and dunnock

A couple more visitors to our feeders,
The redpolls don't seem to stay long, may be the feeders are a bit too close to the house for them to feel confident, but we really enjoy the few glimpses we get.
The dunnocks on the other hand are around pretty much all year round, they don't feed from the feeders, we are more likely to see them hopping around in the hedge or under the feeders.

redpoll

redpoll

dunnock

dunnock



 

With the snow comes the birds!

Just a few of the birds that visited our feeders today - and there were so many waiting in the hedge for a feeding post to become free!

busy feeders, blue tit, great tit and goldfinch

long tailed tit and house sparrow

goldfinch, greenfinch and robin

Brambling and chaffinch

brambling and goldfinch

brambling and robin

chaffinch,goldfinch,  robin and brambling

blue tit, great tit and goldfinch

 

These were all taken through a double glazed window and it was still snowing. I didn't manage to get the redpoll either - hopefully they will return tomorrow.

Barn Owl

Not great pics I know but tonight we were visited by a barn owl,it has been a few weeks since we last saw one here and as always such a beautiful sight. made even more special by the snow that was falling too!
Amazingly a jogger ran across the icy common and alongside the barn owl while I was watching but he didn't seem to notice the owl at all, probably more concerned about the depth of water he kept landing in after crunching through the ice!

I guess it rained last night - Again!!!!

 

We have seen it wetter here but not much!

Common darter

Even after waking to a heavy frost this morning, we still have a few dragonflies about including this common darter that spent a good ten minutes or so warming up in the autumn sunshine on our gate before flying off again.

Harvestman

spotted in our garden this morning - this harvestman creeping around the marjoram