500th Post!!!

I can't believe this is my 500th post - I feel it should be marked in some way, but really can't think of anything! Let's just settle for a virtual toast to 500 more.


The nest I posted a picture of earlier in the month has some residents! While tidying up the bottom of the garden, I had a peek and came face to face with Mrs. Blackbird hunkered down as small as she could make herself. We had a lot of gardening work to do just outside the nest yesterday and I was a bit worried that after us crashing around uprooting a large dead palm tree from it's huge pot and planting it's successor which took us most of the afternoon we might have scared her off. However, she was back there today and whilst she was on a tea break, I snuck down and took a very quick picture of the inside of the nest. Four shiny bespeckled blue eggs - wow! I can't wait to see them hatch and hopefully be able to get some more close-up photographs.



Our garden is quite a little bird sanctuary - it's a bit overgrown with lots of hidey-holes, as well as having the advantage of a large dog on patrol to keep away any cats or magpies. We already have robin chicks in the ivy, about ten feet along from the blackbird's nest, and blue-tits are nesting in eaves of the house just above Stacie's bedroom as they do every year. One year the blue-tit chicks were so tame I was able to get within a couple of feet of them and take photos which I used for a painting. It was amazing - when I wanted to check their colours or plumage while I was working on the painting, all I had to do was step out of the door and stand still by the bird feeder for a few minutes and they'd pose for me as much as I needed.






I've just finished knitting a chick of the woollen Easter kind - this is from an Alan Dart free pattern (check out his website for some incredible knitted toys and their downloadable patterns.) It was a lot more successful than the failed knitted egg, so I think I will dash off a few of these rather than labour over lumpy eggs!