The Bluestocking - where women are women, and small furry animals are gerbils, quokkas, capybaras, or a red panda called Rosy

[MarieDeGournay]

Welcome all to the Bluestocking Pub, a haven safe from harsh reality [mostly] full of good company, and excellent food and drink served by the most efficient team of gerbils in the hospitality industry.

Indeed, but three mugs of tea in it's feeling better than it did at 6.

I'm on coffee number 2. Even the cats look a bit drowsy.

DH and I have both been sleeping badly and the clock change hasn't helped. I do have a cup of tea to hand now and I'm hoping that perks me up.

Uggggggg.

I hate clock changes! I'm all discombobulated. Why is it nearly nine am in some areas of the house and has not long turned half seven in others?

I like your snazzy elytra there!

Good morning+1 to all, I've been thinking that many of my fellow Stockingers are, unlike me, mothers and grandmothers and stepmothers etc so I wanted to wish you a happy day, but of course one can't be too careful these days so here is my greeting:

💗🌸I can't say 'Happy Mother's Day'
Cos that might be a trigger,
So 'Big Hugs to the Parents
Whose Gametes are Bigger'🌸💗

xxx to all today, but especially to mothers, and feck the begrudgers!

edited to say 'especially to mothers, and feck the begrudgers!'

Today is not so bad. I'm taking my DM to lunch at 1 with my DB and I normally have breakfast at 11. Skipped it today because otherwise I won't be hungry for lunch. But I've just realised lunch will actually be at 12 because of the hour change and suddenly I'm only eating an hour later rather than two hours later.

Lovely and singy in the garden just now, Checked with Merlin - a Blackcap and a Robin and a Blackbird and a Mistle thrush and loudest and most insistent of all, a Chiffchaff. Welcome back, friend.

I also saw a Redwing, looking less than enthusiastic about having to fly to Scandinavia. Nice that it and the Chiffchaff met, however briefly.

I imagine the redwing and the chiffchaff comparing notes about flying conditions, turbulence and in flight snacks

I haven't seen any exciting birds since the marsh harrier the other day, but yesterday when I was walking the dogs a robin landed right in front of my feet and stayed there long enough for me check my step and get halfway through, 'Goodness me, you are tame!'

There are lots of skylarks singing here at the moment.

Most of the bird noise here is the nearby rook colony. They aren't the most melodious birds I've come across. And that's saying something, coming from a magpie!

Confusing, isn’t it?
I have a video medical appointment at 9am tomorrow, for which I may need all my wits about me, but I’m normally still asleep at 8am.

And baby rooks sound like adult rooks, only smaller.

Do baby Rooks have more of a high-pitched croak croak?

yikes, I go away for one night and come back about a hundred posts later in a different place. I’ll catch up later but I’ve got a garden that needs some mindful destruction (weeds, excess dogwood and so forth).

I heard my first skylarks of the year today!

Quieter, slightly higher pitched, just as rasping. No nicer than the parents' racket. They are busy building nests. The jackdaws are arguing over who gets which hollow in which tree.

@ErrolTheDragon the skylarks have been going full throttle here for the past 3-ish weeks. Wood pigeons shagging busily in public view. Pheasant cocks shouting loudly from the depths of the woods ('Kra-KRA-Kruck!'). The wigeon are very flightly and restless, suspect they'll be off soon. The sugar beet campaign is over, the crops are growing, the last fields have been sown (quite a lot locally down to spuds this year by the look of it) and the lambs are out in the fields.

And yesterday and today, a bloody cold wind blowing flat to the ground and knocking all the daffs about.

Although Batshit is asleep under my elbow, Brains is staring at me and trying the old thought-transference trick of 'WALKIES! NOW! Get off your idle arse! NOW!' So I will shortly be out in the cold wind aforesaid, doing my duty.

Those without dogs somehow imagine that 'obedience training' is people getting their four-legged friends to do what they're told. Those of us who have loved canines know the truth.

I must be psychically attuned to the Bluestocking (though I absolutely don’t believe in psychic anything) - I hadn’t read any of the preceding posts about birdsong when I added mine mentioning larks.
They may indeed have been singing for a while but we’ve not been up on’t moor or the right sort of seashore for a while - but this weekend we had an overnight trip to the Peak District, which despite being tucked in just the other side of Manchester we are oddly wont to forget exists.

Just seagulls for me today, bird-wise, and some egrets.

Home now peace and quiet. Haaaaa

Just gonna say that I love the arrival of Spring.

Egrets? I've had a few...but then again, too few to mention😄

@MarieDeGournay

Very good 🤣

Lacking information about egrets, I had a look at the wildlife trusts information and found out there are three different types:
Little egret
Great white egret
Cattle egret
All of them used to be extremely rare visitors and are now increasingly common, although the Great and the Cattle egrets are on the amber list for conservation. They are a type of heron.

As for having a few egrets, I think I've only ever seen one, and that one was far away and pointed out by somebody else and I couldn't see it properly. So it really was too few to mention.