What I should think of as the first of this Winter's woodpigeons turned up briefly in the back garden this morning. As did a host of spadgers, pairs of blue tits, collared doves and coal tits and one of the great tits.
It's getting harder to tell the spadger families apart these days, it's only the older males that are strikingly tawny-bellied or silver-cheeked. Both families have some very dark-bellied females and some white-bellied females, there are a couple of very dark-cheeked young males that don't seem to be attached firmly to either team.
I've been sleeping badly so I decided to ease myself into the week and it was lunchtime before I got on the bus intent for a wander Wigan way. And got off at the next stop and headed off to my father's so I could get him to the walk-in medical centre. Not a big deal, there was a minor problem that's the work of a moment but which neither he nor I should try to do. Ironically, because it wasn't a big deal and because the centre was ferociously busy with people needing urgent care it was hours before we were sorted. These days the front line of the NHS always reminds me of those old variety acts where someone would set up twenty or thirty plates spinning on top of sticks and keep them spinning so they didn't fall off.
On the way to the walk-in centre I noticed that the cold weather had brought in the woodpigeons with ones and twos dotted about in trees and on rooftops along the way.
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