The spadgers and titmice continue to make inroads on the feeders. It's sweet that the robin and the coal tit lurk in the bushes by my knee and shoulder respectively as I refill the big seed feeder. The spadgers hang back in the roses and the great tits chunner from the rowan tree until I move off.
The woodpigeons are still around but only fitfully: there'll be a dozen on the school playing field for half an hour, usually just before lunchtime, then nothing the rest of the day. The gulls are nearly always herring gulls and/or lesser black-backs with the occasional common gull or black-headed gull. We're very rarely getting the big gull flocks this Autumn.
I had some errands to run so I walked over to Humphrey Park Station. The usual sparrows were very quiet, there was only the rattle of magpies. The cause soon became apparent: a juvenile sparrowhawk was sat on the gate to the Liverpool platform. It silently flew off and silently disappeared through a hole in the hedge I'd think a blackbird could just squeeze through. It reappeared on the fence further down the platform, the magpies sitting in a tree keeping an eye on it. The late-running express to Liverpool passed through at speed, scaring the sparrowhawk off. I spent the ten minutes waiting for my train listening to spadgers and titmice making the roll calls in the bushes.
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| Sparrowhawk, Humphrey Park Record photo taken from the phone at maximum zoom. |
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