Home thoughts

Sleep caught up with me and it was gone half nine when I woke up this morning, late enough to knock today's plans out of the water given the local train timetables. It had been a wild and woolly night out there and though the wind had calmed down the rain was setting its stall out for a snorter so I conceded defeat, made a pot of tea, got some toast and joined the cat in staring out of the window.

The local breeding population of woodpigeons seems to be back, dividing their time between feeding on the school playing field and sitting in the trees cooing and canoodling. I think the collared doves are well ahead of them, the female isn't sticking round in the garden for very long. The same can be said of the great tits, the blue tits are still busily chasing each other round the roses. It's been good to be seeing pairs of goldfinches back in the garden, they've been sorely missed, but the pair of chaffinches have moved on to wherever the local chaffinches spend the Summer. They might only go as far as Moss Park but I suspect they move into the woods along the Mersey as the wintering birds move back to the continent.

There's a season change on the school playing field beyond the arrival of the woodpigeons and the disappearance of the rooks as they go to nest by the river. A couple of dozen black-headed gulls still congregate in the morning, loafing and preening as they wait for the breaktime bounty. They're usually accompanied by one or two common gulls, some days there may be three or four, they're definitely on the move. The adult herring gulls are only around at lunchtime and barely stop on the field, one or two first- or second-Winter birds may hang around for an hour or two. The adult lesser black-backs outnumber the herring gulls at lunchtime and there's usually one or two loafing on the school buildings or on the field. They'll soon be nesting in Trafford Park, there are plenty of high flat roofs amongst the factories and warehouses that they use.

The magpies have returned to their traditional nest in the ornamental pear tree by the roadside and I think another pair are settled in one of the conifers by the station. After the couple of years' tussling between crows, rooks and jackdaws in the big alder at the corner of the road it's been abandoned and the crows, magpies and jackdaws robbed all the sound sticks for their new nests. I think I've been spared a jackdaws' nest in the chimney pot this year. Further down the railway line, all the trial nests built by the magpies have been abandoned, leaving the two old established nests in play for another year. Which may explain in part why the teen gang that does the rounds of local parks and gardens is more than a couple of dozen strong.

Last week I'd started getting myself worrying about not getting to all the places and seeing all the things, as I do periodically. There's some justification to it: I've let a long, wet Winter get the better of me too often and there are quite a few of the Winter regulars still not on the year list. Of the places not been there's really only Frodsham, the Northwich woods and flashes and New Brighton that I really need to include in the itinerary over the next week or two before I miss the season. And checking over my records I see that I'm actually a week or two ahead of my targets compared to last year so I need to stop beating myself up and concentrate on enjoying the birdwatching and the walks.

Just for interest's sake (it's objectively meaningless), the year list so far is 141, this time last year it was 132. 2022's was my highest year list and this time that year the total was 142. I'll still worry about not seeing redpolls, ringed plovers, waxwings or tree sparrows yet and fret about geese and Bewick's swans and snow buntings, mind.