Happy New Year to chums near and far. And a healthy one too, which is on my mind as others have been "pinged" in our close circle and it's a worry.
The period between Christmas and New Year is always an odd one, and this year is no exception. The weather has been unseasonably mild, and the last couple of days have been gloriously sunny too. Yesterday morning there was a hint of mist, which made going up the garden to feed the chickens a slightly spooky affair, as can be seen.
The mist burnt off very quickly though, and both yesterday and today we have sat out with cats, watched birds, done some gardening and enjoyed nature. It was lovely to get the hammocks out again today and sit in The Garden watching the tits and a robin working their way through a coconut filled with fat and seeds. I was surprised to see the robin doing that in fact, as I thought it really was a trick of blue tits and great tits. We do actively encourage great tits in The Garden as they are the only bird to have decided to eat pine processionary caterpillars, and with nests in a couple of the pine trees round the garden, encouraging them seems like a good idea. A friend did happily point out that great tits also predate bats, but if my bats live where I think they do, no great tit could get into the space!
The weather is also conducive to good, dramatic sunsets - this was yesterday's.
The French make a big deal of the Reveillon as they tend to call it and New Year, although this year the festivities were more muted due to the charm free Omicron. In previous years, we have gorged on foie gras, smoked salmon, steak, oysters (occasionally done as Angels on horseback with bacon and prunes), but this year we went for tartiflette, a delicious mix of potatoes (home grown of course), smoked bacon, onion, garlic and Reblouchon cheese. We didn't eat all this pan, we did save some to go with sausages today!
Wandering around the grounds today, we spotted this rather dramatic and interesting fungus - I might work out what it is by next week! So bright that I wondered if it was a piece of plastic brought in by one of the foxes in the Orchard, it stood out among the detritus under one of the walnut trees.
And so to the Year of the Pheasant. The trail camera has been in a very tucked away part of the Orchard this week, and I managed to control myself and not visit it every day to see what it had caught. We have dodgy photos of a fat pigeon, a rat, a hedgehog, and a possible ragondin, or coypu. The fox was also nosing around and a blackbird did his thing in front of the camera too. A duck walked past. But the most prolific visitors to the area, and yet not the ones that make the paths, were the pheasants. Here are three girls doing what they do.
The warm weather means that the male pheasants are getting frisky, so clearly my three girls are interesting prey. There are sounds off too!
But I don't think male pheasants are that bright, and this one has also been tagged by someone, so is also at a bit of a disadvantage. Doesn't stop him thinking he is pretty fab though!
The trail camera is on the move now, to keep an eye on what is causing damage elsewhere, and hopefully will have some good footage again for next week, when I will be back to Sunday updates.
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