Our week that was: The first in a new series

This is the inaugural post in a new series we’re launching entitled, ‘Our week that was’. It’s where we’ll share a few highlights of our previous week; be it somewhere we went, something we watched, something we did etc.

Television

We’ve just finished binge watching all three series of Australian tv programme, Mr Inbetween. We thoroughly enjoyed it and can’t recommend it highly enough. Without giving too much away – it follows the day-to-day life of protagonist, Ray Shoesmith, a contract killer.

App

The Merlin Bird ID app is my new addiction! It all started when I heard an unusual-sounding bird while out walking the dog. I recorded its call and shared it on Instagram, but no one could identify it. I downloaded Merlin to help solve the mystery.

I’m amazed at the way the app can analyse a sound recording of a chorus of song and pick out all the individual birds from it.

A week or so after hearing the mystery bird, I saw a post from a near neighbour about a hoopoe visiting their garden – it made the main Welsh news website!

Hoopoe sighting news headline from the Wales Online website

Image of hoopoe from the Wales Online website

Event

Justin went to The International Antique Home & Vintage Fair of Wales at the Royal Welsh Agricultural Showground in Builth Wells. It happens twice per year, and we always make sure to attend to buy stock for our shop. The fair is huge, with sellers both inside and outdoors.

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A post shared by Sarah Jones Antiques & Curios (@sarahjonesantiques)

A gift of eggs from Photowall at Easter

** Use the DISCOUNT CODE hisforhomeblog25 for 25% off any product on the Photowall website (valid for 2 months: 5 April – 7 June 2021). **

We’ve just received this lovely Song Birds eggs canvas print from Photowall. Eggs for Easter… perfect!! After offering us the chance to try out their service, we had a good browse through the huge range of prints on offer.

When we saw this one, we knew immediately that we could give it a good home. We have a small area in the cottage given over to ‘found’ objects and nature specimens – shells, pebbles, fossils, bones, feathers and the like. This canvas bird eggs poster was the perfect, complimentary artwork for the room.

Whilst we were happy to use this image from their own catalogue, Photowall canvas prints are actually highly customisable; you can choose the size you want – and even choose your own design – simply upload a photo or scanned image as a high resolution .jpeg, .gif, .png or .psd file and take it from there!

The package includes clear & simple instructions. It’s an ingenious design and it took less than 10 minutes to put together, ready to hang on the wall. Photowall has published a helpful YouTube video showing you how to construct your canvas – we’ve embedded it at the bottom of this post.

Our Photowall experience has been excellent. We’ve been very happy with the whole process – from ordering on the website to hanging on the wall.

_{[ Many thanks to Photowall for providing the canvas for review ]}

Price Points: Squirrel-proof bird feeders

We have an amazing variety of birds coming to visit our garden. We don’t fool ourselves, they’re only here because of the array of different food that we put out for them. We lay on a buffet of lard balls, peanuts, meal worms, niger seeds… and the favourite of most of the visitors, sunflower hearts.

The sunflower hearts aren’t the favourite of just the birds, local squirrels have recently taken a liking to them too… too much of a liking, in fact. They muscle in, hog the space, and prevent the birds from getting any. We’re going to have to invest in some squirrel-proof bird feeders.

Squirrel-proof bird feeders work in 3 different ways. Firstly, some have feeding holes that are too small for the squirrels’ teeth but that birds’ beaks can access easily. The cheap meshed example is one of those. Others, such as #2, have a cage around the feeder that small birds can get in and out of, but squirrels are too large to fit through. Lastly, as in #3, the weight of a squirrel on the feeder causes a spring mechanism to drop down and close the feeding holes. Most garden birds are too lightweight to activate the closure.

We have a lesser spotted woodpecker come to feed each day, however, he seems to prefer the feeder containing the peanuts anyway. The meshed feeder seems to have holes that may be large enough for whole sunflower hearts to fall out of and scatter below. It would be perfect for something the size of whole peanuts. My money is on the cage option, especially as it has 4 feeding holes… it will reduce the amount of squabbling amongst the birds for the premium perching spot!

Meshed bird feeder: £3.69, Amazon
Guardian with 4-port seed feeder: £34.99, CJ Wildlife
Squirrel Buster Plus feeder: £79.99, RSPB

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Some of the links on our blog are affiliate links. We may receive a small commission - at no cost to you - if you click through and make a purchase.
Prices & links correct at time of publication.

Squirrel Buster Plus feeder
£79.99

Guardian with 4-port seed feeder
£34.99

Meshed bird feeder
£3.69

Squirrel Buster Plus feeder
£79.99

Guardian with 4-port seed feeder
£34.99

Meshed bird feeder
£3.69

Squirrel Buster Plus feeder
£79.99

Guardian with 4-port seed feeder
£34.99

Meshed bird feeder
£3.69

Squirrel Buster Plus feeder
£79.99

Guardian with 4-port seed feeder
£34.99

Meshed bird feeder
£3.69

Squirrel Buster Plus feeder
£79.99

Guardian with 4-port seed feeder
£34.99

Meshed bird feeder
£3.69

Price Points: Nest boxes

It’s currently Nest Box Week; observed annually from 14th February, it puts the spotlight on breeding birds and encourages everyone to erect more nest boxes in their local area. We put up a couple in our garden at the start of the month, in the hope that some of our resident robins will make use of them.

Birds won’t use any old box you provide for them, different species have different requirements. Obviously, small birds need small nest boxes and large birds need bigger ones – but there’s a lot more to it than that.

Before you go out and buy a nest box… or create one, think about the kind of birds you get coming to your garden. I’d love to give a little owl a place to lay its eggs, but I’ve never seen one round here. We get lots of different garden birds because we hang lots of bird feeders. As well as the robins, we attract tits, black birds, house sparrows, siskins, bullfinches, chaffinches and nut hatches. We’ve even spotted the odd black cap and fire crest!

Roosting pocket: £4.50, RSPB
Sparrow colony wooden nesting box: £16.99, NOTHS
Little owl apex nest box: £149.00, CJ Wildlife

shop nest boxes

Some of the links on our blog are affiliate links. We may receive a small commission - at no cost to you - if you click through and make a purchase.
Prices & links correct at time of publication.