Mikes weather bits & Photo Blog: Plastic Herons don't frighten off real ones from a pond & the Mont Blanc Jewels

All to often we are told To lose a few pounds but here's a story from the mail that looks at things in a different light. For the over 50's piling on the weight is dangerous it says but keeping your weight "stable" is the key to living longer. I always remember being told I was "at risk" because I was 2 pounds over my BMI limit at one "well man clinic". 2 Weeks later having lost the 2 pounds i was declared "fit and well"! Mmmmmm

A man finds a box of jewels while climbing on Mont Blanc

The sky news story tells of 2 Air India planes having crashed into the mountain, one in 1950 and another in 1966. The jewels apparently worth £207k were found while the man was climbing one of the mountains glaciers. The story alsoc relates that a bag of diplomatic mail was found in 2012 and claimed by the Indian government.

The UK's Ash Tree's look set for a spot of bother form an imported pest

The BBC tells us this is an "Emerald Ash Borer" and its set to cause a few problems. Strange that in its original environment it doesn't kill the trees but since it appeared inrthe US in 2002 its devastated the Ash trees its come into contact with. I remember back in the 70's we had our Elm trees all but wiped out by Dutch Elm Disease not a pretty site to see these huge trees withering away.

Nearer to home, I spent some time yesterday getting rid of the branches not used for firewood up at our logging site

The trees I'm clearing at the moment are tall gangly things and a lot was going on the branch heaps. It had got so tall I was having problems throwing more on top so it had to go.

So with the heap from the last pic on the right almost gone i set fire to the larger original heap as well.

Autumn is showing its colours quite well now in the valley and heres a pic of the changing colours emerging

We had noticed our fish keeping to the deep part of our pond and this is something they don't normally do until the depths of winter. A neighbour said he had seen a heron sitting on the pergola just above the pond and that explained the problem.

Answer? get a plastic heron!

I looked on the internet before buying "Henry the Heron" and there seemed to be more "For" than "Against" the fact that a plastic heron will stop real ones from plundering a pond of its fish.

I was up at the top of the garden inside the greenhouse opening up a bag of birdfood yesterday and as I stepped back out into the garden a huge Heron flew gracefully up from the pond and off down the valley!

So! being now firmly in the camp of "A plastic Heron will not keep real ones away from your pond" we set about putting a net over the areas of the pond most likely at risk.