Month: August 2011

Tony was desperate to catch house martins before they migrate for the winter and only had one volunteer when he needed two. So Anne stepped into the breech and participated in her first bird ringing session ever!

This involved placing a fine mesh net in front of their nests under the eaves at twilight when they had just gone to bed for the night and making a racket. The racket frightened them out of their nests and into the nets. So Anne held one of the poles, Henning Ettrup the other while Tony got the birds out of the net.

That was the easy bit and the quick bit. Afterwards the birds were ringed and measured and Tony was trying to get blood samples; not easy with a bird which weighs on average 18 grams. In the end over 30 birds were ringed and we didn’t get back home until well after midnight!

 We are not the only ones who go on our summer hols! Choccie also seems to do this at around about the same time as we go on holiday. This year she left a few days after us and was still away when we returned from Wales. She retuned for one day only about a week after us and then was gone again.

I was beginning to feel guilty about not making any efforts to find her so I finally got around to phoning the national lost cat service on Tuesday 16th August. I had only put the phone down for five minutes when I heard an almighty crash in our bedroom, which is off limits to cats. When I opened the door, who should saunter in but Choccie! So I had to phone the lost cat people almost immediately once more to tell them ‘Do you know what? She’s just turned up!’

And when Mia returned from school she told us another spooky fact – that last year Choccie returned on August 16th too!

Today we drove to the west coast of Denmark to visit the sand sculpture exhibition at Søndervig which was very impressive. I am still confused though about how the sand does not crumble and disappear in the rain! The exhibition lasts from June to October. I imagined that they rebuilt the sculptures every morning but of course they don’t.