Owl have news for you!

About 2 weeks ago I was working from home with the windows open to the garden when there was lots of commotion going on down in the small piece of woodland which lies in between our garden and a small river at the bottom - the Jays and Blackbirds were making such a racket!  So with great curiosity I ran downstairs and went outside as quietly as I could with camera in hand and to my amazement discovered an adult Tawny Owl feeding her two babies in the branches of one of the oak trees - all in broad daylight - amazing!  So for the next 2 hours I crept around the wood trying to get myself into a suitable position to capture the young owls on film - unbelievably difficult due to the fact that as soon as they saw me they were off!  But these were three of the best ones I could manage...

This was certainly not an experience I'd have missed and a complete first for me!  The owls were regulars in the woodland during the day for about a week following and each day the commotion started up and I begun to realise that they'd returned but for the last few days things have returned to normal and have been loving our other garden visitors - newly fledged Great Tits and Blue Tits and young Great Spotted Woodpeckers who are very comical to watch!  I realise quite how lucky we are with such a variety of birds in our garden and privileged to see so many bring up young here too.























 





















I thought I'd give you a quick tour around our garden - these photos are about a week out date now and will update again as soon as I get the chance.... with all the added rain my gardening work has been taking up every spare minute of my time so apologies that you've not seen me posting much recently or visiting your own blogs... will be back as soon as I can!

 And then to the woodland where the owls were hiding!

 This was my Jubilee Weekend project in the garden in an attempt to get my sweet peas planted - this year I'm trying "Rhapsody in Blue", "Juanita" and "Fragrant Skies" so will report on these once they get a bit bigger.  The framework is using hazel sticks from our woodland which the birds love, the wood chips below which I've used to much the area are from a friend's garden and much appreciated and the lovely box hedging plants are from small plants I got from my Mum who started these off in Cornwall a few years ago.  Each year they've been transplanted into bigger pots and this year (and about time too) they are finally being planted... watch this space for what will happen to the others!

This last photo is one that I took on the side of one of the lanes whilst enjoying a sandwich before heading off to another garden to do a pile of weeding... so lovely to see the poppies amongst the corn and they were humming with bees too which is great to see!