Lazy Saturday

The current alpha male of the "silver" sparrow family.

The spadgers pretty much monopolised the back garden bird feeders today, except for the ten minutes that the squirrels were fighting over the sunflower seeds (and demonstrating how they broke the old metal pole). Somehow four goldfinches managed to sneak in and get a good feed before normal business resumed. Ironically, I'd given up on the niger feeder the other day and emptied the last of the bag of seed onto the bird table under the cherry tree. The goldfinches' loss has been the collared doves' gain. 

Collared doves

Both sparrow families were in at the same time this lunchtime, a flurry of bodies whirring in and out of the roses and blackcurrant bushes. Over the Winter a few younger birds will move between the two families, the bird feeders acting like the county fair in agricultural communities. This was easier to spot when the families were smaller and I could recognise more individual birds. The only individual first-Winter bird I can reliably recognise this year is the hen sparrow with the white tail feather that's in the "silver" family from across the railway line.

• Blackbird 1
• Blue Tit 2
• Collared Dove 2
• Dunnock 2
• Goldfinch 4
• Great Tit 2
• House Sparrow 30
• Magpie 1
• Starling 1
• Woodpigeon 1

There was a fair-sized flock of black-headed gulls on the school playing field. In the past we'd be routinely getting flocks of fifty or more this time of year but the past few years the numbers have tended to be smaller. The herring gulls included a huge brute of a male that dwarfed the others.

• Black-headed Gull 41
• Herring Gull 9,
  including 6 adults, 2 first-winters, one subadult I couldn't age
• Jackdaw 5
• Rook 2
• Woodpigeon 19