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First-Winter starling

It was a lovely, bright Winter's day and I really should have gone for a walk or done some cutting down in the garden or some such. So I refilled the feeders and left the garden to the spadgers and starlings and spent the day reading, well out of the way of the grim reality that is the last Saturday before Christmas.

Singing starling

I read that it's been a bad breeding year for passerines. In my garden the spadgers did well but the others seemed to have had mixed fortunes. The goldfinches had at least three broods but none of them resulted in more than three young and I don't know they survived long; I've not had more than one goldfinch in the garden for a couple of months and even that not since the beginning of December. The blue tits and great tits didn't have big broods and they're only coming into the garden in ones or twos so far this Winter. Hopefully next Spring won't lurch from cool and wet straight into blazing hot again and the birds get the chance to find enough small insect food for their nestlings.