Street Scenes and The Weather Report

 Lookout in La Paz, Tenerife

I've been doing a daily weather column in a local forum since last year and along with the current weather conditions in my area of North Tenerife I include photos taken the same morning and the previous afternoon.

The Teide in February

This is my own choice to include photos but it does give an impression of the general climate and atmosphere of this part of the island.  It also requires me to get out and walk around each day, including days when I'm not in the mood for an outing, even if it's just in my own garden. So the weather report does have a beneficial effect on me as well.

 The Lido at Downtown Puerto de la Cruz & Martianez Beach

  But living in this wonderful climate, it doesn't take much prompting to get me outdoors walking around with the camera, or jumping in the car, driving somewhere and stopping to take photos.  I really do enjoy it.  So I should include some of those picture here, even though they are for the most part just casual snapshots, albeit taken with some thought.

So here are a few of my daily photos taken with my small pocket point and shoot Panasonic Lumix.  I'll continue in future to include some of these daily street and garden scenes to show this lovely part of Tenerife island.

This young lady didn't know I was photographing her as she was taking a photo of the sleeping cat:

Thanks for dropping by.  Do come again.  ¡Hasta la Vista!

82 ~ The Blackbirds are Back

Blackbird at my window

Well I don't know that they ever left the islands, but they are back in our garden again and looking for some free dinner. Called mirlos in Spanish, their favourite feast seems to be dry cat food and they have a race with the doves (palomas ) to see who can clean out the cats' dishes first.

When there's no food to be seen, they come and sit at my computer room window and look in at me, seemingly wondering when I'm going to fill the food tray, or scatter some food right on the windowsill.

Dove waiting for dinner

So I partially filled my two-tiered cake tray outside that I had only temporarily set out in the tree, thinking I would find or make a better bird feeder. But so far it is still there, my little Moroccan enameled metal cake stand bought in a trendy shop which I imagined I'd be piling high with fluffy cakes and cookies. But instead I've given up the cakes and cookies for myself and have turned it over to the birds, although just temporarily!

He said thanks, it's about time!

So what else is new? We are one of the two areas of Spain that doesn't have snow and ice at the moment! Canary Islands and Extremadura are the only regions that have escaped the extreme cold weather.

Yesterday we had some rain. But it is always welcome here because we have so many plants to water and the lawn is green year round. Everything grows continuously.

Here is the back garden with a sunny shower of rain yesterday morning.

And this morning when there was sun without rain.

I wanted to start pruning the roses on January 7th, with the waning moon, but the ground was too wet to be slogging around so I'll wait a few more days....(or weeks.)
The roses are so beautiful at this moment, it's like spring is already here. Although we find it chilly with a temperature today of only 19°Celsius (66°F) as we're spoiled with our year round mild weather!

Roses from yesterday: Heinzelmännchen and Queen Elizabeth

Have a good weekend, and ¡Hasta la Vista!

24 ~ The Birds and The Bees

Male Blackbird .....(click photos to enlarge)

It's that time of the year again...spring is nearly here although they say the Canary Islands are the islands of eternal springtime. This winter we have had a lot of rain and some lower temperatures for a change. But the garden is blooming, the bees are out and the blackbirds are nesting. Today I discovered their nest which is close to my study room window and not too well hidden, so I will have a good chance of seeing the developments therein. Mother blackbird is sitting on the nest and seems not too worried when I tiptoe up and take her photo.

Female on Nest

Earlier on she perches in the sun on a branch of bougainvillae:

Perhaps she's contemplating a fly for lunch, as a change from the dry cat food she's been eating from the cat's dish on the patio.

The peach blossoms are out and attracting bees.

A blue tit sits near my window observing a plate of crushed crackers I put out for the smaller birds.

The clerodendrum in the back garden is full of blossoms, some still about to open, like this one.

White stock is flowering on the patio.

The bees have found the clerodendrum:

There is no shortage of bees it seems:

As long as the sun shines they will be buzzing around this shrub:

The Iceberg rose blooms faithfully year round:

This aloe flowers every year in February:

Father-to-be blackbird watches from the shadows to make sure I've finally gone away with my camera.