Further improvements in lovely company + some more finches

As my coughing/spluttering is subsiding and outside the weather turned to quite chilly but glorious sunshine, I am considerably more cheerful than in my last post. The main reason, however, for my improved mood is the visit of some orienteering friends who have decamped to us for a few days to work on the map in my hills, but also brought with them a non-orienteering member of the family who was (and still is) very good company.

Before I launch into the story of their visit I thought I would post some more finch pictures. We have been studying the behaviour of our finches and established that their habits are very different from the tits. Tits would come, pick up one seed and disappear with it to eat it on a nearby tree or bush. They are sociable, friendly and never row amongst themselves. On the other hand, the finches are permanently fighting each other, come in large numbers and eat in situ. This latter habit enables us to keep watching them and we have discovered at least three types of finches: goldfinch, hawfinch and greenfinch. The tits are terribly polite and don't bother the finches and thus are left unfed. So I established another feeder, which they have quickly discovered and visit frequently now. I hope the cheeky finches will not chase them away from there as well, or it will be difficult to find a solution to this problem. The winter is drawing to a close, but it is still quite chilly even during the day and regularly below zero at night, so they will need feeding for a while yet.

Now for the visit: On Tuesday while the men were out in the forest surveying Eszter and I went on a walk around the village visiting its "hotspots". The old row of cellars, the view across the valley and the church were lovely and we even managed to catch Istvan, the pastor to let us into the interior of the church. Our perambulations included the Malom Udvar which is getting to look quite nice. They made reasonable progress on the restoration of the mill and the roof is very nearly finished.

On Wednesday while the men were surveying and drawing the map Eszter and I went on a geocaching car/hiking trip. We drove to Bujak and then walked up to the castle ruin. The cache was a bit difficult to find, but eventually turned up. I am always cheesed off by cachers who make no reference to anything that would help finding the sodding box. After all, the point of geocaching is to see beautiful, interesting and/or unusual places, not crawling on all fours digging in the undergrowth or risking fingers in deep holes. The owner of this cache gave no measurements for the box, or any hints if it was under a tree, or under a ledge or tree roots. It finally turned out a fairly small box way in under some roots where I have been looking for about 20 minutes already. The environment and the views were spectacular as you can see.

After the castle we drove through the forest on the military road to the lookout tower called "Eagle's Peak" that I have already been to a few times, but never in such glorious, sparkling sunshine. The tower wasn't open, so we couldn't see the view from the top, but it was spectacular all the same. The two mountains Roy calls the "Tits" were clearly visible, giving me yet another angle on them from the East. What I need now is a view from the West, as I have photographed them from all the other directions already.

We turned homewards straight after the tower as the last possible cache had a round trip of a 5km walk to/from it and neither of us felt like it any more. Today we made two bowls of trifle, which is now sitting in the fridge and while I managed to forget the cream with which to top it off, I am sure the mapping team on their return from the forest will finish off at least one bowlful just between the two of them.

We are all off into BP this afternoon: Gabor, Marci and Eszter going home, Roy and me going to the airport to fetch Alan and then spend the following 4 days in BP.