Home thoughts and will o'the wisps

A few errands cropped up that needed doing today so the planned excursion had to be postponed. Just as well, really, as after just two hours' sleep I don't think I would have been up to a long walk.

The spadgers and starlings were camped out in the back garden from daybreak. Which explains why I'm having to refill all the feeders every other day. This weekend's the RSPB's Big Garden Birdwatch, whichever hour I select for it will be guaranteed to be a bird-free zone. I might decide not to select an hour beforehand, just wait for the crowd scene and set the clock ticking. They're bound to arrive some time during the weekend: they won't be sat sniggering in next door's ivy for two days when there's food to be had.

I always worry when I see a lone long-tailed tit in the garden so it came as a relief when another one eventually bounced in and started feeding in the rowan.

• Blackbird 2
• Blue Tit 1
• Carrion Crow 1
• Coal Tit 1
• Collared Dove 2
• Dunnock 1
• Goldfinch 1
• House Sparrow 27
• Long-tailed Tit 2
• Magpie 1
• Robin 1
• Starling 5
• Woodpigeon 6

I spent the afternoon mostly on buses on a shopping expedition cum wild goose chase ("In stock at this branch" according to a company's website doesn't always — and certainly didn't today — tally with what the staff on the ground can find in the stock room). This gave me the opportunity to notice that there's a lot more herring gulls than usual this Winter in urban Greater Manchester. They're usually easily outnumbered by lesser black-backs but this year they seem to be evenly matched, even in the city centre.

I was waiting for the bus home from Manchester by the Bridgewater Hall when I heard a call from one of the nearby rooves. My first thought was grey wagtail as they breed hereabouts but it was a most un-wagtail-like noise, a quiet squeaky bicycle wheel sort of a noise. It took me a couple of goes to twig that it was a black redstart, I don't hear them nearly often enough to identify them automatically. I've heard one singing just down the road from here a couple of times, I wonder if it's the same bird. And I wonder if it's a different bird to the one that's sometimes heard over in Tib Lane. I like the idea of black redstarts haunting the city centre rooftops like supernatural beings, offering only the occasional tantalising glimpse to unwary passersby before disappearing back into mystery.