It's a sunny Sunday and I really can't be bothered negotiating the crowds at any of the local sites nor the buses out to anywhere that might be a bit less fraught.
My itchy hands are reminding me of yesterday's wander round Little Woolden Moss. I didn't used to get bitten to pieces, perhaps my body chemistry is changing with age. Or it could be that I'm spending more of my time pottering about what a friend describes as "swamps." Photographs and bird records are happier souvenirs.
There's twenty-something spadgers in the back garden at the moment, squabbling on the feeders, bathing and drinking each other's bathwater. The pair of great tits are their constant companions, I've not seen the younger bird or the robin yet today. The dunnocks are in constant occupation of the boysenberries by the living room window, occasionally joined by a few of the spadgers, more often by one of the wrens.
I've not seen the very pale sparrow for more than a week. It could be that I've just missed it when I've been looking out. It may be that it's started to "fade" into a shade less conspicuously pale. Either way I hope it's still about OK.
This reminds me that it's not just swifts and very pale spadgers that you only miss in retrospect. I've no idea what happened with either the blackcap or the garden warbler that were constant features of late Spring. I've not seen an influx of young warblers (mind you, I've not seen many young birds other than spadgers in the garden this year though that could be because the rambling rose could have provided cover for a full compliment of Chindits).
Anyway… it's full back to school this week, so there won't be the crowds on sunny weekdays; there's been an influx of little stints into the country, a bird I've not seen well in far too long; and I can catch up with the last day's play at the Test when I get home from wherever I end up going.
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