Home thoughts

Coal tit

I'm watching the sleet bouncing off the garden fence and feeling relieved I didn't feel like going for a walk today. The tit flock and the dozen spadgers that had been bouncing round the feeder by the living room window have retreated noisily into next door's ivy, and the blackbirds that had been feeding on the rowan have all ducked for cover.

Coal tit

House sparrows

The pair of mistlethrushes that usually kick around the school and nest in one of the trees a few gardens down have been notable by their absence since late July. I noticed them back on the school field yesterday and they came into the garden today to upset the blackbirds for half an hour.

Mistlethrush in the rowan tree

Gull numbers are up on the school playing field, with fifty-odd black-headed gulls and four herring gulls today, just the one common gull and, for a change, no lesser black-backs. Even though the numbers are higher than any of the other local fields they're less than I'd usually be exprcting this time of year. Perhaps it's the weather, or perhaps this isn't a good year for school playing field earthworms.

After the euphoria of the hoopoe the other day I got to thinking about a couple of things. One was that I need to calm down a bit on the birdwatching, I suspect I'm still subconsciously trying to catch up on the lost Spring migration. I'll still be going out as much but trying to worry less about getting ticks either on the year list or the map.

The other, more fun, thing was to wonder how many times I've got all the birds from a particular family on the British List. And how many I've got none. For the rules of the game I decided to omit the bird families which just had one representative on the List (like hoopoe, or wren, or long-tailed tit). I'm a little surprised to find I've actually managed to see all the grebes and true titmice on the British List. There aren't any surprises in the "not seen" list, half of them I've seen elsewhere but not in the UK.

• Nightjars
• Bustards
• Coursers & pratincoles
• Albatrosses
• Storks
• Frigatebirds
• Tropicbirds
• Bee-eaters
• Tyrant flycatchers
• Vireos
• Mockingbirds & thrashers
• New World warblers
• Tanagers