The weather today is pretty poor here in Berkshire. I have a day off work (hooray!) and will have to go into town later to pick up some prawns from the fishmonger for our Fush pie tonight! mmmmm....!
Anyway.... I was lucky enough to hear and then see a small flock of Long-tailed Tits in the Lime tree this morning. No film in the camera at present, so I've uploaded (with permission) another of Arthur Grosset's fine photos, below.
(c) Arthur Grosset
You'll almost always hear the Long-tailed tit flock before you see it, (like me this morning).
After the breeding season, these tiny little birds with their fluffy bodies and tails longer than their bodies, gather in flocks of up to a dozen or so, all moving from tree to tree together, and calling to each other.
They are insectivorous birds (like many of the Tits) and will hoover up as many insects and larvae from one tree, before flying to the next with their very characteristic undulating flight.
Each of these flocks of Long-tailed Tits consists of adults and young from the previous breeding season, together with any individuals from previous years that have stuck around to help out, so to speak. As soon as the breeding season commences again, the flock will fragment into pairs, each pair holding a territory within the larger, winter flock territory.
Very sociable eh?
13 comments:
Are YOU making the fish pie?
Please post the recipe.
I made fush pie for us when Anna and I were a courtin'.
Welly nice it was too.
If you want recipes and stuff, go and visit electric halibut, (although to beef air, the halibut hasnae put any recipes on his blog for a while now).
Basically- big prawns (added near end), haddock and salmon (both poached). white sauce (home made), parsley, seasoning (lots of poivre of course), buhtaytoes - mashed.
Assemble the dish.
Pop under grill for last min or so, to get the top crispy.
Serve with a jug of home made, very green, parsley saw-wuss, and some green beans.
As Gordon Ramsay would say:
"Fush pie. DONE".
(Yes. Yes. Big boy? Yes).
ps. What computer are you using to log onto "Blue-grey" this mahnin'? where are you? WHY aren't you registering as a visitor from Paris? You shouldn't count as a unique visitor on the front page, because, I've set it up so once you've logged on to the blog once, you cannot add to the total when you log on again. BUT I should be able to see you when I log onto the statcounter account?!
I don't understand.
I'm off to look a the worms int' garden.
More my level.
assemble the dish? what does that mean? CONSTRUCT THE DISH out of modelling clay?
what about a cheesy topping?
you put worms in your fish pie?
I don't know about the stat count, you is the blog admin person, you sort it out?
No cheesy topping for fush pie.
That's for cottage pie.
More importantly, yer so-called "classic" fish pie has a layer of hard-boiled eggs between the fish and the potatoes. I presume from your brief summary that you've omitted this particular abomination.
Strangely enough I was thinking about putting up a recipe the other day as I made use of some of that bottle of Noilly Prat from New Year. Never got round to it though; too busy eating.
No eggs in fush pie.
Thats once again Cottage Pie, as far as I'm concerned.
I think actually you'll find that eggs are part of SHEPHERDS Pie and not Cottage pie. Am I putting the cat among the pigeons?
before you lot get to comment, ok, the egg bit is wrong it's all about beef and lamb.
Eggs, shmeggs.
You may be right. But then again I've not eaten Shepherds Pie to my knowledge, at least, not with eggs in.
All we had at Rathmore was (Beef not lamb) Cottage Pie. Shepherds pie is of course lamb based.
Too late.
Eggs in shepherd's pie or cottage pie would surely be even more wrong than in fish pie. For what it's worth Jamie Oliver and James Martin both say you should put them in a fish pie though. I say: well, you could, but why ruin it?
Right.
Lets end this talk of Long-Tailed Tits shall we.
I've never had eggs in fish pie.
I've had eggs in cottage pie.
Now whether my ma put eggs in cottage pie because she just felt it would add a touch of eggsitement, or whether it is traditional or not, I wouldn't know.
What I would know is that eggs in cottage pie tasted pretty damn good to me.
As for eggs in fush pie. Never had em. Thats not to say that eggs in fush pie aren't traditional. They may well be.
I was asked for my recipe of fush pie. Which I gave!
Not James sodding "caramel sugar-spun cage for puddings thing" Martin's recipe and certainly not that dribbling mockney with a lisp, Jamie Oliver's recipe.
Of course, you could put Long-Tailed Tit's eggs in any damn pie you wanted, though you'd need an awful lot.
Annnnnnnnnnnnd rest.
Best you do that, I think.
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