January 2018 – Owlnature

Waiting… waiting for summer…?

This happened in our living room last night: I suddenly saw our princess by the grass on the floor, lying and just relaxing there with her eyes closed.

She was like this for quite a while there…

We were wondering whether she was thinking about spring, dreaming of summer… 😉 Waiting for winter to end… All this snow and cold still… Wait! – Did she fall asleep?

…with the green grass as her pillow. Aww… 😀 If she was dreaming of spring, dreaming about summer and everything green out there, I can already share the same dream with her…

-Leena

The national birdwatch 2018 in Finland & other things…

The temperatures have temporarily gone up. First we had a pretty heavy snowfall on Wednesday, we had about 10 centimetres of fresh snow on the ground in the evening that day. But after that it’s been even raining, raining like crazy for a while, but it still didn’t melt all the snow, so, here where I’m living, we’ve had snow on the ground for seven weeks now. And they say that the temperatures are going down again and that it will snow again. Today it’s already been sleeting and snowing, and heavily and very big snowflakes, too.

My morning coffee today. I love maps… I take every opportunity to have a map to look at, any map, everywhere… 🙂

And yes, today I took again part in the national birdwatch, the national birdwatch 2018, Pihabongaus 2018, organized by BirdLife Suomi here in Finland. The event is every year on the last weekend of January, it’s not a competition, just one hour of birdwatching, and anyone can participate. The idea is to get people interested in the nature around them and to collect information about the birds living here in wintertime. And even hearing the birds counts.

One of the birds’ hideouts… (I took these last two pictures in this blog post after my birdwatch hour.) So, during my hour I was standing and walking in heavy snowfall and in normal snowfall in our garden. And I heard a concert again! – The voices were many, but, again, I didn’t see that many singers. 🙂

I recognized the voices of crows, magpies, great tits and blue tits and I think I recognized the voice of a some type of sparrow and the voice of a bullfinch – I really was lucky enough to see a few bullfinches here on our bird feeder the other day! 🙂 And I heard a woodpecker knocking somewhere near (I’ve seen two great spotted woodpeckers hear earlier). There always are also some other tiny birds chirping and singing, but I still don’t recognize them…

And the birds I actually saw today: a couple of magpies, one great tit and a flock of small birds – I couldn’t see what birds they were.

So, I was enjoying myself and my hour ended just before my freezing point. 😀

My birdwatching trail…

-Leena

Winter at its peak

Wintry days continue. Lately it’s been even a bit colder. The temperatures have mostly been around -10 degrees Celsius and a bit below – I’ve seen -15 degrees Celsius at night and -14 degrees in the daytime. It’s been snowing, too, and we’ve had snow on the ground for over six weeks now. We have now over 10 centimetres of snow on the ground here where I’m living. The fresh snow has now been that sparkling type of snow, so it’s been very nice to walk out there surrounded by all that glitter. Winter’s been at its magical peak now. 🙂

Today, here where I’m living the sun rose at 9.13 am and the sun sets at 16.13 pm – the length of the day is 7 h 0 min. Seven hours already! – On the shortest day of the year (2017), on 21st December, the day length was 5 h 29 min. 🙂

Blue sky, sunshine, peace and quiet… boooring. ;D

And birds chirping… they really were chirping loudly when I was taking these last two pictures just before publishing this blog post.

It’s already been snowing again today and it’s -10 degrees Celsius right now. It’s just winter now. 🙂

-Leena

Wintry days & oh, deer

Cloudy, cold and frost – three words to describe, in a nutshell, the days lately. So, it’s been a bit colder for some days now, the temperatures have mostly been around -5 degrees Celsius and a bit below. And we’ve had snow on the ground for five weeks now, that’s quite remarkable. 🙂

This happened on Tuesday: I looked out the kitchen window and I saw a deer on the hill. I went outside and there were two deer. Never before have we seen deer here, seen them from our garden. Near our home, yes, many times, but not here.

This is the best pic I have of the event, taken with zoom, and fast. It felt like seeing reindeer in the north. 🙂

The corn plants and… other things…

They have answers…

The cherry tree is patiently waiting for spring…

And a poppy pod… I wonder if there will be flowers here on this spot next summer…

A bit of light yesterday.

And today… My coffee, crepes, apple jam and New York… in Babar’s Yoga for Elephants by Laurent de Brunhoff. I made crepes yesterday, they are oat flour crepes with a bit of barley flour. And the apple jam we made of the apples of our trees in autumn. The word crepe is, by the way, lettu or lätty in Finnish. 🙂

-Leena

Amaryllis & schlumbergera

It was a bit warmer again out there for a few days and water was dripping, and especially yesterday it rained a bit, but for many hours, but it still didn’t melt the snow we’ve had on the ground for four weeks (that’s a month!) now. And then it sleeted late in the evening. Today the weather’s a bit colder again and they say that it ought to stay that way now and that it ought to snow again as well.

So, now it’s been the perfect time for flowers inside the house! 🙂

My amaryllis is flowering now. Biiig flowers… First it had two flowers.

The jungle here… and, oh, a black panther there, up there in the picture… The black with white markings, a funny type of black panther. 🙂

The colours of this amaryllis are lighter than the colours of my previous amaryllis. I didn’t know what colour my amaryllis would be, or I knew that it has two colours, and I assumed they would be red and white, but the actual hue was a surprise. It turned out to be charming, sweet.

Schlumbergera or Christmas cactus flowering, too. This plant moved here with my amaryllis after Christmas, my boyfriend decided to buy this plant. I like schlumbergera, too, very much, and I love the name – I think that it sounds beautiful. 🙂

Since yesterday my amaryllis has four flowers.

Why am I, all of a sudden, taking pictures in the corner of our living room…? Because on the usual spot we have now a plant light, a real plant light, purple light. Purple light is nice and decorative and good for the plants, but plants in pictures taken ‘under its spell’… not exactly natural, the colours they have under that light… I’ll have to think of something – I don’t like this corner that much, the way it is now, when it comes to taking pictures here…

The purple light… But look, that tiger up there looks pretty natural!

So, it’s already been snowing a bit, too, today. Here’s a couple of pictures I took just before publishing this blog post.

-Leena