I have not been distracted by photo hunting for the 50 things blog post, I have posted on the other blog, I have been a very good mother and wife and crofter and made moves towards other stuff on my job list. And having been up since 7am (still dark, still bloody cold and still way too middle of the night for the likes of me) I intend being in bed before much longer.
The reason for the early-up-ness was J ranger and bird ringing. Mike tells me the nets are less visible in crepuscular light (my word, not his) so early morning or late evening (which these days is about 4pm) is the best time for catching birds. So the kids and I were off, armed with mug of tea for me to meet him at 8am, leaving Ady and Bonnie to feed animals, tidy up and get started with Sandy. I stepped out of the static this morning into the veranda and came all but face to face with a stag – oh he was majestic! 😉 We all looked at him for a while and then Bonnie chased him off.
I hung around for a couple of hours and three nets worth of catching so saw robins, great tits and dunnock ringed and released. Its really interesting and the kids got a very full on experience of it all including handling and releasing birds but due to strict (and right) rules they are not officially supposed to do so so in the interests of not getting Mike into trouble I have kept all pics on F&F status.
I left at about 1030 am to head back up to the croft and busied myself making some bread and soup for lunch and doing various labouring tasks such as removing all the nails from a big pile of reclaimed timber. We have almost finished now, should be done tomorrow and have skirting all around including hatches to access things like water, generator, gas and a veranda on the front. I think I might love Sandy 🙂 It looks fantastic!
The kids and I went back to the village as Mike had said he might do some early evening ringing and we were very hopeful of some birds of prey – owls have been mentioned! It was getting too late though so we had a drink at the shop and got home just before darkness fell.