NUTHATCH AT LAST AND A BREAK FROM THE RAIN

Those of you who have been reading this for a while will know the problems I had earlier in the year capturing our pair of breeding Nuthatches with my previous camera. On Wednesday, I was skulking in the kitchen photographing Great Tits feeding on our bird porridge, when this little beauty appeared in the viewfinder. I couldn't believe my luck. They are so stunning; like dull coloured little kingfishers I think. I'm hoping they'll be back nesting next year so the new camera can work its magic then too. By the way, in answer to a couple of queries on the subject, yes - I do take the pictures through the window, which is not that clean I'm ashamed to say!   Here it is again from behind and some of the Great Tits....

Taking off!

The rain and wind yesterday were like nothing I've ever witnessed before. When I took poor Trigger his hay at dusk, he nearly took off as the wind got under his rug. He just stood there looking horrified and unable to move. I had to shout to get him to snap out of his weather induced trance and get him to follow me under the trees. I nearly got blown over by horizontal hailstones and was drenched in seconds when I left the house. This morning, in the calm before the next battering, there was a channel left by the cascading water in the field through the fallen leaves which had scoured the earth of any vegetation. Our neighbour's greenhouse has been shattered and there are bits of snapped tree everywhere. Snippet and I had our first decent walk for days but I fear it'll just be some frenetic stick throwing fairly close to home again tomorrow. It was impossible to use a camera yesterday so here are some pictures from today's more clement moments....

Strange skies early this morning

Rainbow over Kestor

Rainsmudge

Not to be fallen into!

The rain coming the day before yesterday

A cloud caterpillar escaping from a grey cloud this afternoon

The tiny figure on top gives a sense of scale to the tip of Kestor in the distance

Close up of where he was standing

And Snippet does the same scale thing for the stone rows that looked monolithic in the last post but are actually pretty small 

Before I go, a word about our hopeless car. It's a Renault Megane and we bought it new when Origami boy was a baby because it came top in the safety tests at the time. Neurotic first child nerves!  However.....what a nightmare it's been. Just after the warranty ran out, the entire (diesel) fuel system failed on the way to a hospital appointment on the A30. After much wrangling with head office, Renault agreed to pay 90% of the costs because it had only done 15,000 miles which still left us with a bill of over £1,000. The total costs were almost as much as the car cost in the first place! For the nearly eight years we've had it, the electrics have been useless. The electric windows don't work for weeks at a time and then spring back into life. The front left indicator bulb blows within a couple of days of replacing it so we just don't bother any more. The headlamps blow every six months. The air-conditioning doesn't work any more. Half the dial illuminations don't work so that you have to grope about in the dark to adjust the heating and usually end up turning up the radio by mistake. Then to cap it all, the wind screen wipers stopped working on Wednesday which, given the rain we've been having, mean't it was not possible to drive it. Luckily, we also have a fairly beaten up Land Rover Defender which gets us out of here if we're otherwise snowed in, so I was able to drive that. Then the wipers sprang back into life later that day. I wish we had the money to replace it but we just don't, so the electrical saga will carry on. I wonder if anyone else has such problems with their vehicles??? Do tell! Until next time, sorry about so many pictures but, believe me, they were heavily edited! Have a great weekend and I hope it isn't raining wherever you are because it will be here...........