Lazy Sunday afternoon

Herring gull, Lostock School

It's been an idle few days. I was thwarted by trains on Friday, decided I didn't want more unscheduled walks home from Urmston and took the hint and got the shopping done. I've no excuse for yesterday save it was a bit dreich out there. Today's excuse is that I didn't get to sleep until after 08:30am. Which gave me the opportunity to hear my first dawn chorus of the year, starting with the robin singing in the blue light and finishing with the woodpigeons in the sycamores.

The garden birds evidently thought that this weekend was the Big Garden Birdwatch, they've been very self-effacing this past couple of days. Most unlike the crowds of earlier in the week. The spadgers seem to be operating as one, splintered, group coming into the garden in twos and threes and steadily accumulating before moving off in larger groups. The older silver-cheeked males are generally accompanied by a couple of very dark iron grey males of a similar vintage, the younger silver cheeks usually have a couple of females in tow, and there are a couple of groups that are mostly females with a few of last year's males. Some of those females are notable for having bright white undertails and bellies.

It's been a windy day and that's brought the gulls out in force on the school playing field. A few of the black-headed gulls did a spot of worm dancing but most of them, and all the large gulls, just loafed. I can't remember seeing this many herring gulls on here before, roughly equal numbers of adults and first-Winter birds with a handful of seconds, third and fourth Winters.

• Black-headed gull 29
• Carrion crow 1
• Common gull 2
• Feral pigeon 1
• Herring gull 49
• Jackdaw 9
• Lesser black-back 5
• Magpie 7
• Rook 6
• Starling 1
• Woodpigeon 1