This is a bit of a fuzzy photograph, but you get our drift. This is Josie fur, floating alongside Bella - in water, not ICE! The temperature is only just slightly warmer than freezing, but she has decided that it is close to Spring and is shedding her winter coat. Oh joy. No sooner have we vacuumed than we find more hair. So, Elizabeth and the Jose went to the deck with the brush. Here is some of the result. We always put it in the canal or on the towpath, even now though it is slightly early, because the birds pick it up and line their nests. We have watched a fur ball disappear in minutes, taken up beak by beak to a new egg cradle. This will help them prepare...On the bird front, Pete put up a new fat/seed ball and what with that and the peanut feeder, we have full to bursting bird life on the quayside. We feed all sorts of Tits, Finches, Robins, Dunnocks, Sparrows and even a Greater Spotted Woodpecker or two. On the waterside, the Moorhens have begun to meet Pete each morning, as now does the beautiful seagull. Ducks have returned, now that the ice has melted and the Swans, though not Rosie and Jim, make the odd appearance. This is our winter in home mooring routine - keep the wildfowl fed in lean months. When we're travelling on the cut in warmer times, we know that they can feed well without us.
