Bird watching, and sewing.

Yesterday John and I went on a coach trip to Titchwell Marsh in Norfolk for a day's bird watching. The journey there was good, with no hold ups and by the time we arrived the day had warmed up and the sun was shining. There is quite a lot of walking at Titchwell and on Friday I had pulled a muscle in my left leg so I was looking forward to some bird watching but not the walking involved. As luck would have it an ex colleague of mine was on the same trip with her husband. She had tripped at home that morning and banged her head so we decided to leave our husbands to get on with the bird watching whilst we had a slower start, with coffee. We joined two other members of the trip for the walk round the reserve and the birdwatching.  The four of us took everything at our pace and had a great day. I met up with John for lunch and he was having a good day.

We had been told that there was a tawny owl roosting in a tree along the boardwalk. First we spent some time watching the birds on the feeders. There were a lot of chaffinches, blue tits, long tailed tits, gold finches and bramblings all very busy eating. I was fascinated watching them flit about and forgot to get a photo. When we returned to the feeders later the pigeons had taken over. We headed out to try and see the owl. Having located the right tree we eventually found the owl near the top, partially hidden by ivy. It was impossible to get a good photo due to the distance. Turning round this little robin was singing his heart out  and he stayed very still whilst I got his photo.

When we moved on to the freshwater marsh there were a lot of birds which we could see using binoculars but were too far away for a good photo. I really must remember the bigger lens.

The front island had a group of golden plover and also lapwings. We walked down to the beach, past the salt marsh and the tidal marsh. I was very happy that the mud was in the marsh and not on the path. I like the patterns in the mud and that it glistened a silver colour in the sun

At the beach we spent some time looking for shells. There were a lot of broken shells and you had to look really carefully to find the whole ones.

The beach was deserted except for a few people

Out on the sea there were scoter ducks. These are sea ducks and found far out from land. We looked at them through the birdwatching scopes that some people had with them.

Normally I am far more engaged with bird watching and I was pleased to see several birds that were a new spot for me, including the Bramblings. Having taken a more slower approach to the day I wasn't feeling the pain from my pulled muscle but I still enjoyed the trip. There were a lot of different species and as a group 89 different bird species were seen. John saw over 50 different species and that included several that he had never seen before.

Today I decided I would try and catch up with the mystery quilt. I managed to get quite a lot done. I completed making the half square triangles for 3 more groups and making the large blocks. Here's what I finished

I still have two more groups to turn into half square triangles and I need to do some block trimming. There have been far too many HST's in the last couple of weeks.

Having packed this away I went on a hunt for suitable fabric for the remaining appliques on the red manor house quilt.  I am making this quilt from fabric from my stash and preferably from left over scraps. I am trying to reduce my fabric supplies at the moment as they seem to be taking over a lot of space. In the end I went through all my supplies, refolding fabric, sorting it into the right storage boxes and generally tidying everything up. I haven't quite finish but it is already much more organised, and I found fabric I could use in the blocks..

I also spent a little time this evening planning how to quilt the pinwheel quilt.

I have an idea of what I want to do in the four patch squares but it is the pinwheels that are currently giving me brain ache. I'll sleep on it and maybe a plan will have miraculously popped into my head when I wake up tomorrow.

I have some slow stitching to do tonight on the baby quilt binding. I have one long and part of a short side to complete and I have sufficient time to do it, so by the end of this evening I should have a finish. I will need to add a label but I will leave that until the baby is born and I have his or her name.

I like the fabric I'm using for the binding. This was a piece left over from a redwork quilt I made. I'm linking this post with Kathy from Kathy's quilts for her Slow Sunday Stitching.

Take care

Lyndsey