Baby bluetits

Saturday, 15 June 2013 11:34 am
keaalu: A hummingbird (Haeckel birdie)
The other day, I was working on my computer when I heard bluetits calling, outside my window. I looked out, and found a whole flock of them - parents and their babies - in the trees outside (I think they're limes, but I'm not sure). One parent brought two up to my balcony, so I HAD to get out my camera.

Photos under cut to save peoples f-lists )

Ipswich Waxwings

Thursday, 21 March 2013 07:42 pm
keaalu: A hummingbird (Haeckel birdie)
I spotted these at around 17:45 today. :) And I probably wouldn't have seen them at all if not for the shrieking throng (ok, there was about 5, but they made enough noise for about 30, haha) of 10-11 years olds leaping around on the propellor statue in the grassy-gardeny-bit outside the flat.

At first, all I could see were a group of dull grey-brown birds, and automatically assumed them to be (very early?) juvenile starlings, as a big flock of them had just flown over. Then I realised they weren't really behaving like starlings (they were being FAR too polite), then I spotted the white on the wings, and realised hey, they're not starlings at all.

Click for photos! )

My birdfeeding endeavours are not really helping the tiny birds I thought I'd be helping. I put food out (1 tray, 2 hanging feeders), but usually it's eaten by either: a) 300 starlings, which all descend on the food bowl en-masse, b) woodpigeons, although I have partially foiled them by moving the tray JUST out of reach, or c) rooks. Yes, rooks. On my birdfeeders. What.

Impending gardening

Friday, 27 July 2012 02:00 pm
keaalu: (dusk)
I need to do some gardening this weekend, otherwise Thundercracker will get a chance to consolidate his bid for kitchen dominion. ¬_¬

Last saturday, Mum gave me a "Mina lobata" (Mexican firecracker, aka "ipomoea lobata") vine seedling. Since seeing one in their garden, it has become one of my favourite plants, and it crops up in my art all over the place, examples:
...in Mirii's hair
...being carried by the little green bird.

It was only a couple of inches tall when she gave me it - short enough to fit inside a sandwich bag with its pot, with room to spare...

...the little seedling has subsequently grown about two feet in the last week. ¬_¬ It has also latched onto the pinks in the kitchen windowsill and is using them as a frame to climb up.

I have called it "Thundercracker" (come on, how could I *not*) and am hoping he survives when he gets out on the balcony.
Thundercracker pt1 Thundercracker, pt1
This was such a weedy little thing when Mum gave it to me - probably only about a third as tall as this? In two days, it's grown a good few inches. It's surprising me how fast it's growing, actually.
Thundercracker, pt2 Thundercracker, pt2
Two days later, and he's moved to the kitchen (sitting in the French window was frazzling him a bit, in that little pot). Mr Pink evidently makes a good climbing frame.
Thundercracker, pt3 Thundercracker, pt3
....and we have another inch or two of growth! He's obviously beginning his bid for dominion of the kitchen by strangling the "Reservoir Pinks".


...I dream to think what I'm going to find when I get home. I can't be continually unwinding him off stuff XD.

Birdies

Monday, 16 April 2012 06:30 pm
keaalu: A hummingbird (Haeckel birdie)
(belatedly) Crossposting from my LJ

First, artiness.
Halli Halli
A sort of sketchy, "working doodle" of Halli. I'm still trying to pin down the species' final look; they're even LESS birdy than they used to be. She's descended from a flightless alien bird, for want of a better description.

She's of the "sanuki" race, which means she's fairly strikingly coloured - primarily reddish/russet in skin-tone, with paler areas around her eyes and on her cheeks, dark lips and a dark stripe up her nose and over her head.

Aron, the little male/"drae", is clavare; he's a lot paler, with darker eyestripe. (He reminds me a little of a badger. :P)


And some more pictures of "my wildlife".
Great tits Great tits
As in, the bird. And all right, OK, it's 3 shots of the same bird - but that foils my desire to make puns.
Hop-along Hop-along
You can't tell from this photograph, but this adorable little ball of fluff only has one leg.

When I first saw it, one leg was dangling pathetically behind it, and it looked like a huge effort to perch on anything because the leg would catch on things. The leg looks like it's possibly dropped off altogether, now. :( It doesn't even look like it's tucked up in its fluff, just... gone. Everything is still a huge wing-flapping effort, though. I suppose it must be really hard to balance.
Hop-along Hop-along
My one-legged robin lunging for a crumb that's fallen down off the fat-ball holder. I put out a whole dish of food (you can see it in my pigeon photos), but apparently the fat-balls are better.
Hop-along Hop-along
"What'choo looking at, anyway? Stop taking photos, person."
Hop-along Hop-along
Action shot! A fluttering lunge for another morsel. Seriously, this poor little bird goes to such a huge effort to feed itself; it must be exhausting.

I've not actually seen him/her for a few days, so I'm a little worried. I keep putting food out - the pigeons aren't eating ALL of it - but I've not seen either "Hop-along" or its mate recently.
Hop-along's friend Hop-along's friend
They're either mates, or just... unnaturally pacifist. They don't fight when they're together at the feeder, at least.
Muted Sun Muted Sun
On one side of the flat, the sun was peeking out through a really heavy, black cloud.
Twinkling Rain Twinkling Rain
That feeble, clouded sun gave some beautiful twinkling rain...
Evening Rainbow Evening Rainbow
...and on the other side of the flat, a full rainbow! (Although it was so much brighter and more beautiful in real life.)

There's a pair of pudgy little dunnocks going crazy out there as I type this. We've just had another hailstorm - I think we've had... five or six in the last few days? - so they look rather windswept and buffetted around, like they have huge poofy skirts on.

Edit on 16/04/2012:
Panic over! Hop-along was back in the feed dish tonight. :) Balancing a little easier, too, looks like. Phew!

Photographs

Tuesday, 3 April 2012 12:56 pm
keaalu: A hummingbird (Haeckel birdie)
Well, I WAS going to upload some photographs to my Flickr, this lunch time - they've started to demolish the old Crane foundry near where I live - but the hospital internet connection is misbehaving and I imagine I'll have to just wait until I go home tonight. :(

At least I can post some other photographs on here. :)

A different kind of flying doom. Not content with troughing all the food itself, my pigeon has now started bringing a little friend along.
Pigeons, part deux Pigeons, part deux
Oh, there's two of you? Great. I'll just make plans to spend even MORE money on food for you to throw all over the place.
Pigeons, part deux, 2 Posessive pigeon
I'm not sure if he's making a point to me, by standing IN the food tray. THIS IS MY FOOD, GO AWAY. Is that really necessary? :P
Pigeons, part deux, 3 Pigeons, part deux, 3
Pigeons, part deux 4 Pigeons, part deux, 4
That bird has REALLY BIG, creepy pupils. ¬_¬


And a little more of the garden!
More daffodils in bloom! More daffodils in bloom!
I was so pleased to see more were coming out and NOT DYING that I took another photo, haha. And see in the top corner? I interrupted someone's supper, s/he didn't realise I was there - and I didn't realise HE was there until after he'd already flown away.
Robin! Robin!
"Hmm, I'm sure there was a brown blob in that last photo, but it's gone." *flick through photos on camera* "OH, it was a bird!" I'm sure he was somewhat disgruntled by the fact I was in his way.
Clematis Clematis
The resurrected clematis. It spent all winter as a dry brown mostly-snapped-off stick and I was just preparing to dig it out and put a new one in... and it must have heard me, because it's gone crazy over the last couple of weeks. I need to secure it to the fence with some wire, because it blows a gale across here and it'll only get snapped off again.


And finally... at last, after years of not having a camera with me at the right time, I caught her on camera.
Dauntless Dauntless!
Seeing my little space-ship in bus form always amuses me, in an "I went home on Dauntless today! XD" kind of way.
The same way it's not JUST a blue Subaru Impreza, when I see one, it's Slipstream.
Dauntless, closeup Dauntless, closeup
"Oh, you're not a bus geek are you?" one of my colleagues I catch the bus with says, when I get on after her.

Authors are such misunderstood creatures. *melodramatic swoon*

More photographs

Tuesday, 3 April 2012 08:19 am
keaalu: (DOOM)
Well, I WAS going to upload some photographs to my Flickr, this lunch time - they've started to demolish the old Crane foundry near where I live - but the hospital internet connection is misbehaving and I imagine I'll have to just wait until I go home tonight. :(

At least I can post some other photographs on here. :)

A different kind of flying doom. Not content with troughing all the food itself, my pigeon has now started bringing a little friend along.
Pigeons, part deux Pigeons, part deux
Oh, there's two of you? Great. I'll just make plans to spend even MORE money on food for you to throw all over the place.
Pigeons, part deux, 2 Posessive pigeon
I'm not sure if he's making a point to me, by standing IN the food tray. THIS IS MY FOOD, GO AWAY. Is that really necessary? :P
Pigeons, part deux, 3 Pigeons, part deux, 3
Pigeons, part deux 4 Pigeons, part deux, 4
That bird has REALLY BIG, creepy pupils. ¬_¬


And a little more of the garden!
More daffodils in bloom! More daffodils in bloom!
I was so pleased to see more were coming out and NOT DYING that I took another photo, haha. And see in the top corner? I interrupted someone's supper, s/he didn't realise I was there - and I didn't realise HE was there until after he'd already flown away.
Robin! Robin!
"Hmm, I'm sure there was a brown blob in that last photo, but it's gone." *flick through photos on camera* "OH, it was a bird!" I'm sure he was somewhat disgruntled by the fact I was in his way.
Clematis Clematis
The resurrected clematis. It spent all winter as a dry brown mostly-snapped-off stick and I was just preparing to dig it out and put a new one in... and it must have heard me, because it's gone crazy over the last couple of weeks. I need to secure it to the fence with some wire, because it blows a gale across here and it'll only get snapped off again.


And finally... at last, after years of not having a camera with me at the right time, I caught her on camera.
Dauntless Dauntless!
Seeing my little space-ship in bus form always amuses me, in an "I went home on Dauntless today! XD" kind of way.
The same way it's not JUST a blue Subaru Impreza, when I see one, it's Slipstream.
Dauntless, closeup Dauntless, closeup
"Oh, you're not a bus geek are you?" one of my colleagues says, when I get on after her.
Authors are such misunderstood creatures. *melodramatic swoon*


Edit: Rrgh, why does LJ make it so hard to find the pics/galleries management page?
keaalu: (bee nom)
I wonder where the birdies is?

Oh yeah, wait, no, I know where the birdies is - the pigeons, at least. ON MY BALCONY, TROUGHING THROUGH THE FOOD DISH. Hurr.

( Remember This? )

Well... :3 (photos under cut) )

...this is all before the snow returns, of course. The weather is clearly gearing up to be rubbish just in time for the school Easter holidays.

Daffodils!

Tuesday, 20 September 2011 06:37 pm
keaalu: (bee nom)
I have just been out on my balcony planting daffodil bulbs.

I am now anticipating great things! ^_____^ Spring will = EXPLOSION OF COLOUR (well, yellow) (hopefully)

Edit: and these are SO not chips. They're like, 2x4s of potato

(no subject)

Monday, 6 April 2009 06:20 pm
keaalu: (Default)
Houseworking. Bah! *has planted a clematis and got all the crud out of the dead-stuff-pot, at least*

*will be back laters* In the meantime, HAVE SOME AWESOME.

Google Streetview Car pulled over by police in Bradford (numbnuts shouldn't drive in bus lanes, obviously).

*still working on Ch21!* Uuuurgh. My brain feels like it's dripped out of my ears. :P So I'm going to go sit on my balcony and eat Pot Noodle.

The EPIC CAKEOFF

Wednesday, 1 April 2009 02:25 pm
keaalu: (CAAKE)
Okay guys, I've come to a decision. I was sat there staring as the screen this lunchtime trying (and failing) to get ANY words done at all anywhere on my current story that I'm just going to ditch it and start the next one. I know, I know, it's such a lame cop-out, but seriously? Storyline sucks and is starting to look like swiss cheese, it's so full of plotholes, and I'm bored with it anyway. "Future Tense" sounds like so much more fun to write, and anyway, I can actually PLAN that one out! Work out where I'm going to take it before I start working on it, that sort of thing. So, is awesome, y?

Ki, anyway.

Today we had an EPIC CAKEOFF in work; I forget what exactly triggered it, but it was something like one of my colleagues returning to work from a shortish break had learned to make baked cheesecake, and another friend essentially said "I bet mine's better than yours" and Lo! Today we get to work and there's two cheesecakes in the fridge, one from each "contestant" and a voting card to say which you liked best (By drawing a little tally line on it). The raspberry cheesecake (raspberries on top, not in it) won by a comfortable margin. ;)

I love some of the patients we get at work. One little old lady on one of the surgical wards wanted to do her own insuling, and basically told the nurse "oh yes dear, I inject 150units Novorapid in the morning to last me the whole day!" *headdesk*

I seem to have spent all my time on the wards destroying CDs since Monday, though. I filled a 2.5l sharps bin with them on Monday when I was covering Capel - it took me almost an hour, and 20 minutes of that was just popping the tablets out of their blisters! - and another one today on Washbrook.

I did get a little praise from a rather cratchity old lady, though. I wanted to speak to her friend about her tablets, and basically just confirmed the medicines she took to make sure we'd got her doses right, and the first lady was very miffed that I was the first person who'd treated them like they were still intelligent people and not senile. :\ She was going on about how "all those other girls - and I'm olg enough to be their grandmother - have acted like they were teaching me how to do my tablets and I've done them myself for the last 20 years! I do the cryptic crossword in the Telegraph, you know!"

We're been joking in MI about how little we remember of French lessons at school. We were trying to read the German "Ritter sport" packet without Kirsten's help (she's German so it'd have been cheating ;) ) and it went on to how "usefull" the French we actually remember IS. ¬_¬ I mean, we're talking really vital stuff, here, like: "Je voidrais un pain au chocolat/une glace" and "ou est la piscine?" (or "Ich mochte eine tasse tee mit milch" for German). Because if you go to Europe, the most vital thing to know what to ask is "I would like a cake/cup of tea".

You've probably already noticed I can never think of anything good to do for April Fools' Day. ¬_¬ (Although I wasn't lying about the writer's block). It's been a bit of a boring day in comparison with some - the day started off weird, when one of the girls I get the bus with in the mornings told me Ipswich Buses were changing their timetable AGAIN... At first I was all "ha ha yeah April fool amirite?" but then got to work and found the new timetables on their website. Seriously, Ipswich Buses are so useless - they've not actually ANNOUNCED the timetable changes for that route EITHER time it's changed in the last 6 months. (First time, the bus just didn't turn up, and when it DID arrive it didn't stop because it was full from all the earlier passengers. ¬_¬) Then of course there's the increase in prescription charges - £7.10 to £7.20. And no-one ever believes us - ha ha yeah right April Fool! No, honestly, the price has gone up - I know it's the start of the new financial year and everything, but seriously, you think they'd wait until the 2nd to put prices up. :P

Some April Fool jokes have been pretty good, though. I particularly liked Moo's (and the annoying thing it, I would TOTALLY have bought it, too, if it hadn't been a joke. ;) ) :D They had a great one last year, too, with a GIANT SIZED business card (I think it was A2 or A3 size XD ) "to give you that added impact!" Pizza Hut's was silly and pretty obvious (although it's fun to click through the pages to the end), and CafePress's was too, but at least they made an effort. :D I was a bit disappointed that they didn't also do jokey fake "content" pages for their CafePress-o-pedia. ;)

Then of course we also had the UNFUNNY "pranks" during the day, too. I mean, I KNOW people will use April Fools' to be hurtful and unfunny, but this is just stupid. :P (We got an MHRA drug alert with "not an April Fool!" written on it as well. I was kinda amused by it. ;) )

The weather outside is awesome, for a change, and bawww, we're missing it. :( It's sunny and cloudless and although there's a bit of a breeze it's lovely and cloudless. BUT I can finish my gardening when I get home, so that's good!

OK this is the end of your infodump. Whee. :)

Plaaaantbabies!

Monday, 30 March 2009 07:12 pm
keaalu: (dusk)
I decided that my first act for the longer light-evening-after-work, I was going to do some balconying. (It's like gardening, but it's when you're missing one really vital bit of kit)

I feel so productive! I bought some plants from Lidl on the way home - a pieris and some lavender - and the lavenders must have sat there in that shop for soo long because half of them are the most pathetic little dried-up bits of green ever. :(

Anyway. First stop was to clean out the tubs on the wall around the edge of the balcony, and one had the most spectacular dandelion you ever did see growing in the corner of it. Bah! That got pulled out and I have no remorse for doing so. :P And one of the tubs was FULL of microbeasts. I want to know how the heck EARTHWORMS got into it! The (OMG GIANT) centipedes and spiders I could understand, but the earthworms? I live on the first floor! Anyway. There were two little green caterpillars in it as well which made me go ehhhh because we'd had a late frost this morning. ¬_¬

I got them all planted up, and it's still light! (Gone very overcast, though, so with luck it might rain a bit.)

And at long last, I repotted my maple. The poor thing has been languishing in this (very nice but) far too small pot for almost two years, and it always looks dead. ¬_¬ I was going to just throw it away and put something pretty like a little rhododendron in its pot, but then I noticed little leaf buds on it. So, it's off to Last Chance Cafe. I'm going to try look after it a bit better, this year.

Yay, plantbabies! :D

Edit @ 19:32
...it's dusk, and it's gone a weird kind of purple, outside. ¬_¬

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