6 words - word

joining Miriam's lovely meme challenge for a photo with 6 words (I'm cheekily claiming this as 6) this week the theme is 'word'

me on Monday

waving to everyone on a decidedly autumnal day.

It was a third successive weekend of rugby and crochet – with 4 more to come as the Rugby World Cup works through to its Halloween final.  I thoroughly enjoyed all the games but recognise some of my lovely blogreaders will be disappointed by England’s loss.

I did spend some time away from my sofa – at some free book related events at a local library including an interesting discussion on the idea of bringing wolves back to Scotland and how their return would drastically change the landscape as the number of deer and rabbits would decrease and so more plants would survive and thus new habitats emerge.

And I spotted a recent resident on my river – I’d heard one had been spotted in the spring but had not seen it until this weekend when not only did I see the Kingfisher but it stayed still long enough for me to get a nice photo

Wishing you all a good week.

Pair of families

Walking by the river at this time of year I'm always on the lookout for chicks - the goslings are growing well and there are a few ducklings.  some other birds come up the river while they have young as the food is easier to reach than in the waves of the firth (estuary).  I thought these two sets of chicks provided an interesting contrast in family rearing approaches

The goosander seems very successful in rearing a full clutch of chicks.  The eider ducks create a creche of all chicks which is looked after by all of the non breeding females - not many chicks at the moment.  Both sets of chicks dive under water for food so taking a photo can be frustrating as they all disappear under water.

May’s maths

a new set of numbers on the calendar heralds another opportunity to look back on the last month while wearing my counting hat (imaginary for now), safe in the knowledge that Julie and others are doing the same.

In May I celebrated 1 birthday by visiting 2 kelpie sculptures, after enjoying a 7 item big breakfast

I went to Glasgow twice in relation to my upcoming volunteer role at the Commonwealth Games – 1st to collect my pass and uniform and then for a 10 hour training day.  In the afternoon we were let loose on the city in games cars to practice radio use (control, control, message received, over) and appreciate where the 14 venues are in relation to each other.  I still don’t know which of the 71 country teams I will be working with.

I read 6.5 books – unusually I abandoned a book a few chapters in when I realised I did not care about the characters and was avoiding it.  Of the 6 I completed, 4 involved crime solving, 1 was also in an imagined future and so combined my 2 favourite fiction genre (Ken Macleod for anyone else who loves crime solving and sci-fi).

I took 367 photos, of which 81 feature gees, swans or ducks.  I’ve spotted 4 goslings families, 2 duckling families and 1 batch of 7 cygnets.  The largest swan count during the month was 93 and on one day there were 56 swans congregated on this one stone islet

I crocheted a lot, including 1 mandala for Yarndale, 2 yellow ducks for the little yellow duck project promoting organ donor awareness and 6 small animal prototypes to sell to raise money for our crafting for charity (which I shared in this post).  I crocheted while chatting and drinking excellent coffee on all 4 of the Wednesdays in May in our crafting for charity group.

Thanks Julie for marshalling our monthly counts.

come walk with me to see the chicks

Come and walk with me along the river. I’ve been keeping an eye on several nests on the river during my daily walk.  You might remember this goose nest from a zoom in zoom out pairing

Last week I noticed she was no longer on the nest and guessed that her eggs had hatched and earlier this week I saw her with 4 goslings

quite relaxed with them on the grass near people and other birds. I saw them again yesterday on the island in the river

I’ve also been watching two swan nests – the one of the same island as this goose and another

this nest is near where I first saw the goslings and when I glanced over at the nest the swan was standing up and I saw that her eggs had hatched recently and there were cygnets in the nest – you can even see some egg shell in the bottom photo

yesterday I realised just how lucky I was to see the cygnets as she was back sitting on the nest and all the cygnets are hidden beneath her

I love to see the chicks and will be keeping an eye out as more hatch (while still counting the swans – 58 on the river yesterday and a big group out on the firth – too far away to count.