I am back from a week spent with my Mum in not so sunny Somerset, one of the reasons I've been quiet since my last post. More about that further on because I want to show pics I've taken throughout the month in some vague order. I have only taken photos on my phone as I wasn't really in the mood for shooting anything much in my garden for the gazillionth time, so these are just a few things that I found or that happened along the way.
Andrea the hen 'helping' after I'd just weeded the tubs. I am down to only two hens now as the one who had scaly leg mite died, poor thing. I'm not replacing them and guess what, we just had to BUY some eggs!!! Both hens are now in full moult so have stopped laying.
And here she is pecking at maggots from the bag of bird peanuts that we found wriggling. It really annoys me when that happens as they are really expensive to buy and aren't always available, hence us usually buying several bags at a time. The hens weren't interested in eating the peanuts though, but luckily (or not) we had a nighttime visitor a few nights ago who came and scoffed them up. K spotted a fox one night just after he'd put the outside light on looking for Harry who hadn't come in. He thought it was Harry for a moment until he realised Harry didn't have such big ears and a pointy face. I'm wary about a fox getting into the garden and fear for the cats as well as the ducks, but as it happened dear Harry was safe as he'd got himself locked in the barn for the night! It was pretty cool seeing the fox though.
I spotted this Small Heath butterfly roosting on the Golden Rod at about 5pm one evening, long before we changed the clocks.
I also found this huge Fox Moth caterpillar. You can see from the photo with my hand just how big it is.
And now, something very interesting - another thing that's both exciting to see but also makes me wary about such a thing getting into the garden. This is up the far end of the pond where the stream comes in and the shallowest area of lake, so it dries up when the pond level is very low (it's down about 4 foot or more right now). Well now, what might have caused this? There was a trail of deep footprints and a big area that had been wallowed in. We conclude it must have been a wild boar, because the footprints are cloven and have sunk in very deeply compared to the other pawprints around it.
It might be best if you click on this photo to view it larger, as you can see coarse hair marks in the mud, just like a wild boar had been lying against it.
Again, if you look closer at the next photo you can see pawprints which at the time I thought either dog or fox, and now that we know that a fox got in, I'm guessing they must be fox tracks. The wild boar's tracks are much deeper.
We realised that we never repaired a hole in the fence where the fence crosses the stream, so that has now been rectified (although the fox was spotted after that was done, so must be getting in through one of the holes where the cats get out. We can't repair every bit of damaged fence wire under the hedge.)
Our 'tree man' has just been to give a quote for felling more overcrowded trees and thinks he may be able to remove the stand of alders that fell over into the pond earlier in the year. Part of it is still in water, the rest in mud too squidgy to walk on and I have no idea how deep that mud is as I don't want to lose my wellies! I guess planks to stand on is the way to go.
Piccy of the cats, though no Hallie. The lawn is how we found it when we came back from hols after it had finally rained - very blotchy. We're still awaiting the autumn rains.
Back to England, I had a lovely time, a lot of it spent eating all my favourite things! I love clotted cream and having a cream tea was so good I had to take a photo of it. K stayed at home looking after the menagerie and I flew over and my brother picked me up from Southampton airport. Sadly Flybe only use the Exeter route for a few months in the summer now and in fact there are no flights to Southampton during winter anymore. I came home on the last flight of the year. Both flights were full by the way. Conclude from that what you will.
It was gloomy most days but I did a bit of gardening for Mum and got out for a nice long walk with the husband of a friend of my Mum with his dog, which was great as it was a round trip walk that otherwise I would never have known existed. We saw dozens of pheasants. Here is a pic from the top of Mum's garden with the neighbour's Sumac tree looking really colourful.
On the way home I had a good view and the sun came out as soon as we hit France (of course!) so I took a load of photos as we were coming in to land. Love these old prop planes!
And then it was back to collecting yet more walnuts to add to the pile, and yet more huge windfall apples. I intend to stew up a load of apples and freeze them as apple sauce.
I did take a few photos of the garden with my phone. My Forest Pansy has been looking great all October, but we just had a proper white frost the other day so tons of leaves have dropped off the trees now.
And here's the pond showing how low it is, with the fallen tree just visible at the far end.
I've not been terribly in the mood for blogging - think I'm suffering from blog writer's block. It doesn't help that the depression is lurking now the gloomy weather is back, although it's mostly kept at bay by my medication. So if my posts are sporadic then that will be why. I have recently had a CT scan for my twice annual check up and everything was fine, so that's one year clear of cancer now! And I don't have a hernia which I thought I had. I do have a bulge which is why I thought I had one, but the scan just shows fat..... :-)
Our third and last day dawned bright and sunny and we had already decided to go and check out the marshland around the Chateau de Suscinio which was not far from where we were camping; indeed we had had a glimpse of it on our wet and bracing walk the day before.
Very handily in the car park for the chateau there were motorhome spaces, so we nabbed one of them and set off past the chateau to the marshes which surround it. Had to take a few photos along the way, of course.
We passed a few gardens and could see how far advanced spring was here - this was the first week of April yet bearded irises were already flowering. Mine are still only showing some buds all these weeks later!
This plant fascinated me and I don't have a clue what it is. Unless it is a stubby looking allium? It was beautiful, whatever it was.
We had been given a fairly decent map by the campsite owner which had the paths marked on it, so off we set on one of these around the back of the marshes. The track turned a bit damp and we only had our trainers on, having stupidly chosen not to wear our hiking boots, so we were glad to discover a boardwalk. That little butterfly is a Holly Blue; it's a very zoomed in pic but I wanted to get a record of it. The other pic is a bumble bee on willow catkins and you can see it properly if you click on it if you are on a computer with a reasonable sized screen. Otherwise you'll just have to take my word for it!
So much for that path! In one place the boardwalk had rotted and about five foot of planks were missing, but there was one loose plank so we managed to get over it with K helping me. When we got to the end there was a fork in the path with a signpost, one track leading to a hamlet and the other to the beach. We decided to head to the beach but it wasn't to be, a few minutes later and we discovered the path was under water! It is obviously a seasonal path to be used only when the water level is lower. So we had to retrace our steps via the dodgy boardwalk.
Back through the little hamlet we passed these cutesy cottages.
Then we took another path round the back of the marais (that's the French word for marsh), only to find it rather wet and boggy. This is when we really rued having not put on our hiking boots, although wellies would have been far more suitable footwear! It was the kind of path where in places you are standing on grass then look down and realise you are slowly sinking into water which is coming over your shoes..... by this time there was no point in returning and finally we made it to the beach area on the far side of the marsh.
Here it was completely different habitat. We hadn't seen any interesting birds along our walk but to be honest we were mostly looking at our feet! We did hear loads though, including the ubiquitous Cetti's Warbler, which we hear so often but very rarely see. Blackcaps and Chiffchaffs were singing away everywhere where there were trees or bushes.
This grassy area beside the beach was fascinating, already full of flowers, many of which were tiny. I can imagine it full of butterflies later on. There were lots of these orchids but I don't know anything about orchids so can't tell you which one.
Here though there were birds galore. We kept disturbing Skylarks which had been standing in this grassy area - not sure if they would have been nesting here as it was not part of any fenced off bit. One flew onto the fence post and sang its face off for us. This first photo is mine with my Lumix which has a 400mm zoom.
And this is Keith's with a Canon SX40, which zooms in a lot further. I got fed up with changing cameras as I had my SX50 in my backpack, but as there were so many lovely landscapes here I kept on using my Lumix.
A view of the beach here - we'd walked as far as that point the day before.
Looking the other way - later in the afternoon we visited the area in the distance with the church.
I did manage this distant shot of a female Stonechat. There were loads of Stonechats and Linnets flitting about on low bushes.
Well as you can see, the sky was somewhat changeable and it was to become true April showery weather later on. We walked back to the MoHo via the middle path, the sensible dry one which we'll know another time to take! We had lunch in the van looking out over another lake beside the castle. We had originally thought we might visit it but after one long walk, and knowing it would be full of staircases, we decided to give it a miss until a time when I am fitter. Even K didn't fancy it saying that he too was knackered as walking uses different muscles from cycling!
The last photo sums up the afternoon weather! This little chapel, Chapelle Notre-Dame-de-la-Côte, is on a fairly flat promontory called la Pointe de Penvins. We'd been told by one of the guys working at the reserve at Sene that it was good for sea bird watching. It was sunny when we set out to walk here, and indeed we did see flocks of a wader that we haven't managed to ID, and Turnstones. However before we could get many photos the weather changed, it started to bucket down and we rushed back to the van! Wet jackets yet again to go with the already trashed trainers (and hair do).
We had a cup of tea and waited until the sun came out again. This time we decided to put our hiking boots on; however by the time I had done so K pointed to the sky behind us. Beautiful sunshine and blue sky looking out to sea, but looking like in the photo and worse, looking inland. Sighing, we took our boots off again and sheltered back inside the van. We watched with amusement a party of school kids with their teachers setting off with enthusiasm towards the chapel.... wondering if any of them would look back. Yes, somebody must have as suddenly the whole lot of them started dashing back to the sanctuary of their coach and then the heavens opened yet again.
At this point, we decided to call it a day and head home!
So that was our first MoHo adventure and very successful it was too. We loved the whole experience, despite being drenched twice! We learned lots about our van; it certainly is a squeeze at times with two people and we wonder how whole families cope in vans not much bigger than ours, especially when it comes to preparing meals. But when warmer weather comes we will have outside space to utilise so that will make it seem roomier. And by the way - what depression? It suddenly disappears when Mary MoHo is around! Brilliant therapy. :-)
Back again like a bad penny. I know it's been a while and I was desperate to get this post up but guess what, we decided to go away again this last week so there was no time! But I want to keep a record of all our trips so finally here's the first one, which is from several weeks ago. Of course I had way too many photos so have condensed many down by collaging them and splitting this three day trip into two posts.
For this trip, our first proper one as virgin motorhomers, we booked a campsite not far from the coast near Sarzeau, on the Presqu'île de Rhuys in Morbihan, southern Brittany. It was French school holidays so whilst the weather wasn't great, we were not sure what to expect in terms of numbers of people. It seemed that some campsites right beside the ocean were quite full whereas the one that we chose was practically empty, so we were happy about that! The first day we revisited the Reserve Naturelle de Séné, which we had discovered and visited twice in spring 2014. It's good for Avocet watching as they nest here and there are many other species of birds to be seen. We managed to see two lifers, a Reeve (which is a female Ruff) - not exciting for me as it was distant and just looked like many other wading birds, and finally the elusive Bluethroat, although I really only saw its head whilst K manged to get a good view of the blue throat. We have not seen one since despite being in Bluethroat territory the whole time. Ah well.
Avocet (Recurvirostra avosetta) - in French they are called Avocette élégante, which is a very suitable descriptive name for them.
View from one of the many hides, but they keep the plastic windows shut here - good for keeping the wind out, not so great for taking photos through. All the photos in the post can be clicked on to open larger, which is better for the collaged photos and landscapes.
I am rubbish at wader ID so leave that to Keith. This is a Greenshank (Tringa nebularia), which I'm just about beginning to recognise. It doesn't help that at this time of year so many birds are changing to their breeding plumage from winter plumage which can be completely different. If you catch one in between the change it can be even more difficult to ID them.
Of course I knew what these were though! They were walking across a path and are the caterpillars of the Pine Processionary Moth (Thaumetopoea pityocampa). Those hairs are dangerous and can cause nasty rashes so I was a bit wary getting in to take the close up pic!
I also recognised this lady as I'd seen one before. It seemed quite happy to stand and pose on the boardwalk whilst both we and another family took photos of it. It's a European Green Lizard (Lacerta viridis) and I'm pretty sure it's a female as the males have blue under their throats.
It was a delight to see a Spoonbill (Platalea leucorodia) relatively close up too.
Though I forgot the birds when I saw this fox on one of the banks amongst the lagoons. Probably looking for a free lunch but that is nature for you. I expect they eat a number of bird eggs during the breeding season. That's a Shoveler in the background.
There were plenty of Redshanks (Tringa totanus) around and I can recognise them now so long as I see their red legs and their bills which contain some red too.
More Avocets :-)
Oh here comes a phone photo..... eating dinner the first night. I took ready prepared meals from the freezer, a hearty soup/stew for the first night to eat with bread rolls, and good old spag bol for the second, which only required cooking pasta for. We are slowly figuring out our mini kitchen and how it works (and can work), given the tiny work surface space.
Day two, and Keith decides to take a phone shot from bed......
Now this day was mixed weather to say the least. The day before had been lovely and sunny, not really warm but hardly cold. Perfect for walking and bird watching.
And later, doing my drowned rat impersonation. We'd just had a bracing two hour walk along a coastal path in biting wind; on the return journey it decided to drizzle on us, so we got drenched and it was cold and miserable!
Ready to rock and roll again in the afternoon. This time we wanted to revisit Duer, on the Golfe of Morbihan side (i.e. not the open sea side of the peninsula). However parking in a MoHo is not always easy and there are many car parks with barriers to keep the likes of us away from wild parking (particularly on the beach). But we found a space, although we had to walk a lot further to get to where we wanted to visit.
Brent Geese (Branta bernicla) - not sure if we've seen these before or not but if so it was a long time ago. The photo on the right was taken from the motorhome window!
This photo was taken through the plastic of the hide window at Duer marshes showing how springlike it was looking back then, way ahead of where we live.
After walking all the way to the forest where we once spotted the Black Woodpeckers which live there (unlucky this time), we ummed and ahhed about going into the hide again on the long walk back to the Moho. Finally making our minds up, we were rewarded by a whole flock of presumably roosting Curlews (Numenius arquata), with more arriving which gave us the opportunity to see them with their great long bills out from under their wings! A lovely sight.
Mary MoHo in the distance.
On the walk back we passed this ancient lavoir (public wash house). Inside the little house was water full of what looked like duck weed and those are stone troughs for doing your laundry in. I'll stick to my electric washing machine and thank goodness that I live in the century that I do. :-)
More to come in Part 2....... (and I promise it won't be a two week wait before I post it!)
