Lazy day

I decided to have a day off to give the joints a bit of a rest from the damp and the boots a bit of a rest from the considerably more than damp. There's a lot to do in the garden and not a lot of inclination to do much of it. The birds benefit from this lack of energy by having plenty of shelter in between forays to the feeders.

There were a couple of coal tits barging round the rowan tree, I think both were females, and a small flock of long-tailed tits made a cameo appearance before bouncing their way along the embankment towards the railway station. A collared dove and a carrion crow took turns to sing down the chimney (I think it's because the echo makes them sound big and butch).

• Blue tit 4
• Carrion crow 1
• Coal tit 2
• Collared dove 1
• Great tit 2
• House sparrow 18
• Long-tailed tit 5
• Magpie 1
• Robin 1
• Starling 1
• Woodpigeon 1

The wind's blowing a lot of black-headed gulls about. It's the first time for a few weeks there's been double figures amongst the lunchtime crowd at the school. There were plenty flying about while I was traveling about on the bus and I noticed a few flocks of a couple of dozen or so as we passed by some fields. It wasn't just black-headed gulls that were blown in, there was a right crowd circling the playground today.

• Black-headed gull 18
• Carrion crow 1
• Common gull 1
• Herring gull 7
• Jackdaw 18
• Lesser black-back 7
• Magpie 3
• Rook 12
• Starling 3
• Woodpigeon 1