F is for Follow-up - Marx Birds!

An unscheduled post, in that I wasn't planning one, but an old friend came round while I was gardening, and a coffee and beer later, and quick trip over to the new flat to show him, and I've lost the light, so the gardening has been halted early and will be finished tomorrow, just hope the beer doesn't affect my spelling! Or should that be 'effect'?!!

 

I mentioned these the other day, they have been in Picasa for a while now, and it was clear the contents were all muddled-up when I shot them, so I'll just chuck them up as a box-ticker, and to confirm that that one the other day was also a Marx bird I think, same design, not sure anyone else did anything quite like these?

Clues on the packaging suggest at least three tranches/print-runs for the boxes, probably only one main run for production of the models, with an earlier and later issue (red or black text for the bird names) and a UK specific issue (/UK codes)?

Simple pre-coloured kits of 5-7 pieces, depicting relatively common species, and a little card with a water-colour sketch of the bird (if you want to repaint in slightly more realistically?) with a thumbnail biography on the reverse. Box-scale but maybe between 1:6th/1:8th, for the smaller tit-birds at least? The owl probably around 1:12th.

 

Similar 'match-box' packaging to the Zoo/Wild Animals (which explains my Hippo being in two parts!), as copied by the lesser Hong Kong sourced stuff from Shackmann, they must have been fun!

Now fully covered on Moonbase, via Paul the Antipodean, although it's probably the sixth time since Christmas one of the Paul's have used my Posts for their follow-ups! It's getting boring now guys, 23,000 toy companies to Blog from and you need to keep following me? Sign you're running out of original copy, isn't it? And it's not his work, it's everybody else's efforts! Tedious; but there's that bell-curve, in the background!

S is for Spring!

Well, although it's getting colder by the minute this afternoon, and we've had two-and-a-half days of intermittent rain mist and drizzle, we did, back on Monday/Tuesday have the most glorious days of warm sunshine, bringing the Mirabelle plum out in a thick shock of ivory-cream blossom and getting the blood stirring in the wildlife...

This young Blackbird came right up to me as I weeded the rockery, looking for little bugs and things to breakfast on, bold as brass!

There were several Brimstones flying around but they didn't land long enough to catch on film, but this Tortoiseshell, was sunning itself for quite a while on the lawn and I got some nice shots.

It's funny - I think the brimstone is probably my favourite butterfly, or equal with the orange-tip, while the Tortoiseshell is usually only photograph-able at the end of the year when his/her wings look like the one that got away from  Manfred von Richthofen's flying-circus, all shattered and bitty! So there is a symmetry in not getting a shot of my favourite but getting the best shot ever of one I usually don't shoot!

Finally a moth that had the appearance of being fashioned from bits of sun-bleached bracken...as it emerged from a clump of er...sun-bleached bracken; there is the cleverness of nature in all her wonder summed-up in a little thing less than an inch across!

 

 This little mouse looks a bit damp as I had to rescue him from the mouth of Frodo, who was having a wail of a time not killing him for sport! I then had to engage in a great deception with Frodo, helping look all round the wheelbarrow for the 'escaped' mouse, so that he didn't blame me for loosing it.

As I was doing so, I saw the mouse had not gone far before stopping to groom cat-slobber off it's whiskers, so I then had to distract Frodo further, in the hope he wouldn't spot it. In the end the mouse disappeared down the back of the privet hedge, Frodo got to kill my bootlace and everyone was happy!

D is for Duck! - It's all-right; they're stationary.

Giving my mate Shane a lift home this weekend, we dropped into a friend of his to check out something he's waiting on (his blog; Diary), he's on the same CAD course as me, and his friend Paula had more than two of something and as we all know - more than two of something is a collection!

The puffin and turkey are clearly interlopers, and most of them have some sentimental value or carry the associative memory of a visit somewhere while the small terracotta one was made by one of the daughters of the family - I well remember making a rabbit at Heckfield Village/Primary School before it was converted into yuppie-flats by Thatcher! I've kept them relativity the same size and clicking on the image will enlarge them.

The largest is no more than about 5cm, with the smallest one (inset - carved malachite) about 10mm. What intrigued me about them was that there is clearly a market for people all over the place to make small ducks, one sort of expects bears, pigs, hedgehogs, rabbits and the like and I know of several owl collectors and a couple of frog people, but it seems ducks have a fan base also! What do you collect on that spare shelf...send us a picture and I'll put it/them up here.

Autumn

Well, just left the court for what was hopefully the last time and - due to the other party hopelessly compromising the out of court settlement - all will be revealed, but not on here first, I'll let the New Agency dealing with the case disseminate it all and make some sense of it!

Anyway, should be less of a bear with a sore head going forwards, but still a few weeks stress moving house and sorting files!

In the meantime here are some pretty pictures of one of the best Autumns I can remember, the late trees seem early, the early trees seem late and they've all caught the Oaks, so the colours out there are stunning...

Victoria Park, Newbury, Berkshire about two weeks ago, the limes just on the turn and in direct sunlight seconds before the heavens opened! The grey storm-clouds providing the studio drapery.

Fleet, Hampshire, on the Ancelles Farm commercial park, is it my imagination or do the young trees turn a week or two early? Less capacity to store water?...

A corporate HQ in Basingstoke the same day, a truly yellow one; apart from the odd red yellow or pink 'turn', when you go up to them and study autumn trees, you find most of them are some shade of brown, but it's the way they go over, or interact with the others around them of in the background that makes the display. The Hazels - as an example - currently have mostly green leaves, with a Florida-tan brown edge to them and a yellow zone between the brown and the green.

A hillside on the edge of Salisbury Plain on Monday, a few miles short of Luggershall on the Hampshire/Wiltshire boarder. I was on the way to an interview for a retards course, now I'm officially a retard (don't worry, it'll all come out in the next few weeks...), and had to pull over for this burning hillside. The Andover road up toward Wayhill had some stunning vistas but I couldn't stop to shoot them.

This is the hill down into Newbury from the big retail-park up at Wash Common, yesterday, just loved the dull maroon in among paling greens.

Pheasants congregating in the first wisps of the first mists about a week ago, the mist was changing as fast as the pheasants woke to my presence and despite taking a dozen or so shots this was the only usable one, and it's hardly a pro-shot...Doh!

They're bigger!

1st Brood Have Hatched

The first lot of Swallows are big enough to peek over the top of their nest, well - I say 'nest' - more of a cave actually, or a mud-hut! They are very sweet, if a little ugly!!

Puie puie! Or, as Bulgarian Swallows go...Pyew Pyew! I've just checked the image with the + sign and there are 6! There were only five last year, then she had a late four...how many this year?

More Photo's as they grow!

Happy New Year

A bunch of white doves clearing up after a load of straw has left the stack yard this afternoon.

Last Night's Visitors

So who was in the garden last night? Easy;

Next door's cat.

A fox, who took the fat-ball off the bird-table.

A pigeon who took a look at the raided bird-table!

A cock-pheasant who let everyone know he was around in the early hours, they're almost as bad as peacocks at this time of year!