Home thoughts

Good job I went to see the rose coloured starling yesterday morning, it had gone by teatime. Apparently the lady whose garden it was visiting got fed up of people who couldn't respect her privacy and stopped putting food out. It wasn't so much the birdwatchers standing where I was, well away and not staring at the houses, which I'm glad to say was nearly all of us when I was there, but those who kept walking up and putting food on her garden wall so they could get good photos. In the first place this was massively intrusive, in the second place it was entirely unnecessary, it just needed patience (as does all good bird photography, which is why I churn out so many dud photos). I often wonder how/if I'd report a rarity turning up in my garden.

I was feeling fragile after a particularly bad night's sleep due to a combination of heat and hay fever, so stayed at home most of the day except for a quick nip to the shop for bread and circuses. 

The sparrows are steaming through the sunflower seeds and fatballs, largely unseen as they commute through next door's ivy and my rambling rose. There are a few youngsters about, most of the time the adults keep them well undercover but they come out to visit the bird bath once in a while. 

The great tits have brought up two well-grown youngsters and they've been enthusiastically giving the fatballs some hammer. Nice to hear the coal tit visiting yesterday, too. I think they've been nesting under the railway platform but I've not seen any youngsters. The blue tits are still noticeable by their absence.

I'm within the territories of a blackcap and a garden warbler but I don't think either is nesting close to my garden. I think the blackcap's nesting a few doors down. I hear it singing from there most mornings and evenings. The garden warbler tends to come in to sing late morning and mid-afternoon, its dawn chorus singing is coming from somewhere on the other side of the railway.

• Blackbird 2
• Blackcap 1
• Collared Dove 1
• Dunnock 1
• Garden Warbler 1
• Goldfinch 2
• Great Tit 3
• House Sparrow 10
• Jackdaw 1
• Magpie 1
• Robin 1
• Rook 1
• Woodpigeon 1
• Wren 1