Home

If I'm being honest I'm struggling a bit psychologically with this bright sunny weather. The local open spaces are full of people desperately trying to keep their distance from each other and I don't really want to be adding to that pressure (suburban planning doesn't work well in these circumstances as it's predicated on the assumption that most of the time people will be elsewhere at school or work or shopping or meeting friends out and about so there's not really all that much open space per capita when everyone's got to stay within a short walk from home).

I'm not sure who the permanent occupiers of the crows' nest in the alder tree down the road are going to be. A pair of carrion crows set up shop and then saw off another couple of crows who've gone to the other corner of the school and built a nest in one of the oak trees. This week a pair of rooks have been showing an interest in the property. I'd bet on a carrion crow against a rook in a fair fight but rooks are the better at wars of attrition, I suspect in the end the crows will win over, I wouldn't put it past the rooks to take over the magpies' old nest despite the magpies' keeping a proprietorial eye on it.

Judging by the saucy goings-on along the back fence and the sudden interest of the magpies the woodpigeons have set up a nest in the conifer at the bottom of the garden. Most days now when I look out over the school playing field there'll be between twenty and fifty woodpigeons feeding out there with a couple of dozen jackdaws. The other day it was given the first grass cutting of the year which seems to have been the signal for the last of the Winter starlings to make a move and we're now down to the usual half a dozen pairs. The house sparrows seem to be busy with nests, too: most of the day a couple of posses of males do the rounds, the hens joining in full family visits early in the morning and again late afternoon.

While I was standing at the front door counting jackdaws and woodpigeons a couple of tiny specks caught my eye as they floated across the edge of a cloud. It turned out to be a pair of buzzards soaring high over Trafford Park . This triggered an irrational impulse to spend ten minutes scanning an otherwise empty sky for swallows, martins or perhaps an osprey or one of the Isle of Wight's white-tailed eagles or something. I didn't expect to say this but I can't wait for some bad weather so I can go for a walk.

Postscript: I'd just posted this when a blackcap flew in and started singing. Perhaps it's not so bad after all.