This morning Emily and I set up our seed growing experiment from Tomatosphere so we now have a little forest of plastic cups, peat pellets and hopefully developing seeds. There are also some pumpkin, poppy and sunflower seeds waiting to germinate in the forest somewhere, and some rice and a few other things Emily wanted to try out.
While I was taking the above photo, I noticed a beautiful adult thrush, complete with meal, hopping around on the wall just outside the window. It seemed very agitated. Yesterday, Romeo had a baby thrush on the lawn, but Jon rescued it and it seemed unharmed, so he put it in the hedge at the bottom of the garden, hoping it would be OK. I was buy taking pictures of this adult thrush without realising....that there was a baby thrush nestled in the stonework lattice of the wall - that's what Mum must have been looking for! I took this first photo without even spotting the baby until afterwards.
The position the baby was in was extremely vulnerable to the cats, and Ju Ju had already spotted it, so we felt we had to do something. Jon rigged up a hanging basket type arrangement and we were going to pop baby bird in that and hang it from the tree nearby, hoping that Mum would still be able to find it. However, the baby had other ideas. It was clearly on the verge of fledging and it hopped straight out of the basket and onto the ground again, fluttering and hopping away. It could fly, but only at grass level. Anyway, it hot footed it off across the garden and eventually into next door's garden. Well, we tried. Kept the cats shut in for an hour to give it a good chance of finding somewhere to hide. I daresay, since Mum found it the first time, she'll find it again, and it's on the verge of flight. Better off hidden next door than sat in the wall just waiting for a cat :-//
Meanwhile, on return from investigating where it was going, Jon found another baby thrush on the lawn, although this one was dead :-( Looks like the moggies found the nest and destroyed it. It's very sad, but that's the thing with cats, I guess. Although I must say that Romeo and Juliet are far more active hunters than any of the other cats I've owned. Merlin used to bring back baby rabbits, and both Merlin and Cassie-Cat hunted bats and the odd mouse when they were little, but with these two little ones it's almost constant. If it's not a mouse, it's a butterfly, if it's not a butterfly it's a bird. Sigh.
Today as well as lots of planting and attempted bird rescues, Emily's done lots of maths, continued her history study of Sargon & The Akkadians and has been busy examining the meanings behind various world flags. She's out at football training at Scunthorpe FC now; Jon will bring her back just in time to dash out again to his psychic meeting. He's going away on the course next Sunday for a week. Eeek! Emily and I have never been at home without him, and we're not looking forward to it :-(( Between Emily being about 6 months old up until she came out of school, I used to go away a couple of times a year on interpreting jobs for a week each, leaving Daddy and Emily at home, but this is the first time the situation's been reversed. It always amuses me when people say they don't know how Jon and I manage being together 24 hours a day working together from home. I don't know how couples who *aren't* together all the time manage! Emily and I are going to feel like we're missing a limb for a week :-/
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