January crafts

Been crocheting hats and scarves for birthdays this month.

Two infinity scarves made - these were really quick to grow.

Two tone pink one for daughter of my friend who loves pink!

Purple one for my nieces birthday

Little hat for new baby at our church, going to make a matching one for her big sister.

Bird Weekend

On Saturday we joined a bird watching walk with the Grey to Green project over at Horrocks' flashes.
This was an area we hadn't visited before. It was previously an industrial area with the Leeds and Liverpool canal running close by and is now a wetland area created by mining subsidence. There are a series of flashes and it has been designated an area of biological importance.

We first walked through the woodland, hearing lots of bird song and spotting long tailed tits, great tits and blue tits, along with a tree creeper and greater spotted woodpecker.

 

 

I'm not very familiar with lots of wetland birds apart from the usual mallards, coots and mute swans which were all present here. There were lots of different birds to spot, some of which over Winter here from further afield.

 

Today we spotted (didn't photograph any of these myself - just found photos to remind me what they all looked like!)

• Shoveler - these were using their wide bills to scoop the water as they swam along

• Gadwall

• Tufted ducks - with a very striking eye and tuft to the back of their necks

 

• Great crested Grebe - interesting hairstyle

 

• Teal - interesting eye patch

 

 

• Cormorant - we saw 6 of these sat on an island in the middle of the flash and also watched one flying over. The white feathers are part of their Winter plumage

 

 

•  Mute swans - never seen so many of these together - some still with juvenile feathers

 

 

 

This weekend was also the rspb big garden birdwatch. Our count this year was as follows:

 

3 Blackbirds

3 Blue tits

2 Magpies

3 Feral pigeons

4 Starlings

2 Carrion crow

1 Robin

1 Dunnock

1 Great tit

1 Coal Tit

 

No surprises but a reasonable show up for our garden - it has been cold this week.

 

So a twitching weekend for us!

 

Snow!!!

We've had lots of snow here over the weekend and then more yesterday on my birthday. Its so pretty to look at but did cause disarray to our plans somewhat!

At the weekend we went sledging and snowboarding. The local golf course is the favourite place to head to - I'm sure the green keepers are delighted!

On my birthday this is the view we woke up to in the garden

We found some tracks in the garden

Squirrel

Birds

After this most recent snowfall we built an igloo in the garden

Amy wanted to build sandcastles - had to explain to her that we would be making snow castles!

Today we had lunch in the igloo and played with the hoops in the snow!

We have been learning about the different forms of precipitation in the water cycle - snow, rain, sleet and hail. I didn't know how each of these were formed until today!

Amy has made a snowman painting

Wow - the snow brings us lots of different opportunities.

Winter Tree study

We somehow managed to miss starting our new year long tree study in the Autumn! So we have just begun a new year long tree study on the Acers in our garden. My husband and I love these trees and when our first child died we bought one in remembrance for him - its known as Joshua's tree. Since then we have bought one for each of the children - so now have 4 different Acers in the garden. Fortunately they are small trees!

We decided this year that each child would look at their own tree to become acquainted with them a bit more. I decided we would aim to take a photo of the tree monthly and look in more detail at the tree once each season so today it was time for the Winter study.

Joshua's tree

Ben's tree

Luke's tree

 

The following day after our study we had our first whisper of snow, so I took some more photos to celebrate making a proper Winter study!

 

 

 

 

 

 

We looked at the overall shape of the tree and how the branches came from the main trunk.
it is amazing that although they are all from the same family they are quite different, even in their bare Winter state.
Joshua's tree has a main trunk where the branches all come out of the top and bend out and downwards in a weeping willow like way, whereas Ben's has branches coming from the trunk at about 1/3 the way up and then from the top, which continue upwards at an angle from the trunk. Luke's has branches emerging from all the way along the trunk, many at right angles and Amy's was similar.

Here are the boys notebook pages

December garden/Winter tree

December has been rather wet and I realised I hadn't taken any photos in the garden - except these of the trees we are going to be looking of on our Year long tree study!