7 January 2020

THE SPY, THE OWL AND THE CHIMNEY

 
With fine weather chez nous the builder has been able to fix our chimney.
Hoorah!
 
 
It was in dire need of some pointing and the gap under the top bit is where the hornets got in to make their nest last year.
 
 
We are thrilled with what looks like a very fine job indeed.
 
Of course, we have yet to see it in person.  The work has been done in our absence, often a good way to get disruptive jobs done, and photos have been sent to update us with progress.
  
Friends pop by every so often to check on the place, sending photos to reassure us that it's still standing.  We also have a new gadget - a spy camera.  That's very exciting.  We spend hours watching the comings and goings of various creatures and birds, cars passing by on the lane and leaves blowing around.  It alerted us to the fact that chimney work was about to start by the arrival of a van and delivery of a cement mixer.
 
 
We are thrilled to see that the barn owl has moved back in.
 
He/she moved out last year when Daisy arrived for the summer, leaving behind much evidence of his/her inhabitation in the form of lots of owl poo and owl pellets.  In case you're wondering what the difference is, think fore and aft - well actually the other way round.
 
We have several minutes of video of the owl swooping around, here and there, or just sitting on the doorstep, waiting.  Who knows what for.  For several hours at a time it sits on the guttering right by the spy cam, the regular twizzling round of its head and flapping of wings triggering the camera to keep taking pictures.
 

5 comments:

  1. Congrats on the chimney repair. We had a patch job done on one of ours just before the holidays. We're going to need to talk to them about a more permanent fix soon. Vivement le printemps !

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    1. Walt, as well as the hornets we were getting a dribble of sooty water down into the kitchen fireplace so hopefully that will now stop and we can clean up.
      As we say in Derbyshire, "there's allus summat"!

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  2. Jean, when you get back, I'd be grateful if I could collect a largish bagful of those pellets, please.... I can glean a lot of info from them and we've got the Fête de la Nature in May!!
    And what is that spy-camera that you can watch at home there, from here, please... it would be very useful here, I think.

    And, finally... that there blue sky was but a blip!! If it is not raining... it is grey and mizzling.... like yesterday, for example... grey and damp all day... you would be wetter under the trees than in the open!
    I agree with Walt! Roll on Spring.
    And Happy New Era to both of you! And Hugo and Daisy, of course....

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    1. Tim, I'll save some for you!
      The spy cam is a Yale model from PC World but it's fairly basic. I think there are better ones to enable you to observe goings on in more detail.

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    2. I don't actually want more than you are getting for around the house... I have got a selection of trail cameras that will give me more detail... but that is often a handicap!

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