Weekend, 24th-27th.

 Had a good weekend, we went to Reddish Vale Park and saw our friend Rodger, who had lost his dog though illness a few weeks ago and there he was with this little beauty.

It had belonged to a lady who had died and was going to be put down, so lucky Rodger and lucky dog.

Regulars will know where this is, Nuthatch enjoying the seed.

Cormorant on the top Mill pond.

Will you look at the size of this terrapin!

Looking if the Coot has any eggs for its dinner.

The Squirrels here like monkey nuts too.

Take them out of your hand.

At our visit to Pear Mill this weekend, there was this little shih-tzu, two years old, very cute.

This Peregrine was there, think this is one of the parents.

This was another, but a young one, on the big chimney.

We had a visit to the Debdale nature centre on the Sunday, no one had been there for a while and all the feeders were empty, luckily we had some premier fat balls and plenty of monkey nuts with us, so we stocked up the feeders and soon had loads of Magpies flocking round.

They were enjoying the monkey nuts and hiding them and coming back for more whilst the Squirrels were watching where they were buried!.

Fancy meeting you here!.

Did you know?.

A young Blue Tit.

and a Great Tit.

This Blackbird stocking up on the berries

We were up in Oldham today with Pepe having his wash and trim, i'm sure he must feel better afterwards if its only for the bacon scraps I save him from my visit to the Village Manor Bakery, it's worth the trip up to Oldham to go there!.

On the way home we called at the Snipe Retail Park for some shopping at Home Bargains (bird food// dog bed) mostly, and Pepe insisted we visit O'Neilds meals for another bacon buttie and a nice coffee, while the posh people were going in Costca Coffee at twice the price!.

Back home my Wax plant is flowering again, I bought it years ago from a garden centre in Chadderton and its kept flowering ever since the best £5 plant I've ever bought.

A Hoya Carnosa.

Hoya is a genus of over 500 species of tropical plants, and as their common name suggests the flowers and leaves look like they have been made in wax, very unusual.

This one isn't in soil, but gravel and just needs the gravel to be topped up with water.

Well, it's nearly the end of another month and my central heating has just come on so it must be getting colder, had to get one of my winter coats out today as well.  

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This week at Reddish Vale Country Park, 17.9.22.

 This week has started autumn proper I think, have added a t-shirt this week and washed my quilted jackets as it was quiet cool down the Vale on Wednesday, sunny but cool!.

Managed to get a bit better picture of a Kingfisher this week

Not much better but better than nothing.

The heron was still there, the one with the fish from the last post.

Anyone for football!.

This terrapin was on Sunnyside pool, but this was only a youngster compered with the ones on the Lower and Top Mill ponds.

These four on the lower pond are quite big.

But look at these on the top pond, this one is about 14 inches long.

But look at the size of this monster!, it was on the other side of the pond, but it looks about two foot long!.

Heron and Cormorant on the top pond. 

Drying off after diving.

The ducks were all sprucing themselves up ready for the cold weather too.

Still trying to get off the Auto setting.

Any seed Pepe, you know bread is bad for us ducks don't you.

This young Squirrel was taking monkey nuts out of our hands.

The three cygnets and mother liked our seed , but dad was too interested keeping an eye on Pepe!.

Getting quite big now.

Friday saw us at Debdale ressers with this heron 

Today at Pear Mill saw one of this years Baby Peregrines, quite grown up now, but if mum and Dad come back to the nest to mate again next year will probably see it off.

So start getting wrapped up, winter will be here soon, the nights are already drawing in.

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Weekend trips, 10-11th Sept 2022.

 This weekend we had a trip to Pear Mill Café on the Saturday, but didn't stay long as we were on our own with our other two friends having a trip to Fleetwood.

On the way home we called in at Reddish Vale For a cuppa and to see if we could snap a kingfisher or a better picture of the Mink.

Did neither of those things but did meet an old acquaintance from before Covid, and was saddened to see his little dog Sophie was missing and he said he had died three ago, but he was looking already for another dog as it was strange walking without one!.

I told him about a dog rescue site I'd seen on telly, at Sharston, he was driving a curtesy car from Sharston, so would be able to call in taking that back.  

W got a couple of pictures on Sunnyside pool, this Moorhen in the shallows.

The poor little Little Grebes seem to have lost their nest again, from what I heard they have tried a few times over the summer and have had eggs but no babies.

The usual Squirrels were in attendance. 

Sunday saw us at McDonalds for lunch and as the weather looked a bit unsettled only went onto the nearby Ressers.

A young moorhen.

Cute duck on the side line.

As we have a new king, better give him a salute!

One of the Great Crested Grebes was being quite brave near to the shore. 

Give you some idea of the scale against a Canadian goose

I'd been wondering how this new Era would be called and I threw this into the pot for discussing at Pear mill today at our Monday meeting. I mean we had the Victorian Era, the Georgian Era, the Edwardian Era and the Elizabethan  Era, so how do you get to Charles??.

After checking out the internet, which is free there by the way we found that Charles the 1 and 11 Era's were called the Carolean Era's Carolean being Latin for Charles!, since then it's been mentioned on telly but not too much.

I did watch some of the BBC coverage, but must admit not all the Queen's last journey from Balmoral to Edinburgh, all 175 miles of it!. Some of the historical items mentioned during the commentaries over the last few days have been quite interesting though.

Bit of a tear jerker.

 

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