Snowy day

Coal tit

The overnight snow stuck and settled and it was a very picturesque morning. I decided against going out for a walk for all sorts of practical reasons which boil down to my being bone idle, though I did take the opportunity to nip out to Urmston to restock the freezer.

The view from the kitchen window

The spadgers and blackbirds set up camp all morning, taking advantage of the cover provided by snow-covered shrubs and fruit bushes. Consequently the other birds struggled to get a look in at the feeders until most of the spadgers moved on after lunchtime because the thawing snow was dripping down the backs of their necks.

The back garden

The woodpigeons and collared doves started singing before Christmas, one of the blackbirds has started evening song, some days a mistle thrush a few street down pipes up. Today the male coal tit was singing from its usual conifer tree at the station. The magpies are nest building, the snowdrops and Lenten roses are in flower, it'll soon be Christmas.

If you were to ask me offhand what the garden list total was I'd guess at twenty-odd, perhaps thirty and I'd be quite wrong. So far this year it's 22 and that's without the usual visits from Winter blackcaps and chiffchaffs. They've usually been lured in the the flowers on the Mahonia in the border over on the other side of the garden. That's not been well lately and finally succumbed to a fungal disease and had to be chopped down. I need to come up with a replacement attraction. The overall figure for the garden is 58 species, the most surprising being the grey wagtail that spent an afternoon on the washhouse roof, a woodcock I accidentally flushed at the bottom of the garden and a water rail flying overhead. If I were any good at identifying nocturnal migration calls I suspect there'd be a good few more on the list. Given that all I've got is a small suburban garden it goes to show how much is flying about on the quiet. It's The Great British Birdwatch soon, the one day in the year I can guarantee there'll be nothing but squirrels in the garden.