Saturday 25th January 2014

Another decent day until mid afternoon. At 3.30pm it became so dark it was like night time. At 4.15pm for a matter of seconds, still very dark we experienced anther Whitley Whirlwind. Plastic bottles appeared from nowhere and were left scattered all over the garden. In those few seconds 5mm of rain was recorded. At time of writing 7.45pm it is pretty wild outside, heavy rain and wind.
Rainfall to midnight 21mm.
Average windspeed 6mph (this does not include the whirlwind).
Average outdoor temp' 11c.
Bum, Tufty worked a way of nicking the monkey nuts. Made several jumps to make the feeder swing and knocking the nuts to the ground. Back to the drawing board?
              It was a delayed Boxing Day party today. Good to see the family again. My, how the children have grown. We played ' place nose on the Reindeer' and a Penquin race game before we settled down to a good spread by Mrs.T. Dear Lucy wished to go garden bird watching so wearing my hat and using my old bins we settled in the conservatory to watch. Despite it being so dark Lucy spotted the Great Spotted Woodpecker and was delighted to pick out the red tail and white spots through the bins. Lucy is only six so brilliant she has this interest already in her life. Lucy also won the nose on the Reindeer prize so a good day for her.
Picture 1 - Tufty having made a jump for the wire.
    "      2 - A butterfly (still to be identified) sunbathing on the window cill. Sadly I was indoors and unable to capture a half decent photograph.
Picture 3 - Two pairs of Magpies in the silver birch tree.
 "   4 - 6 - Boxing Day party.