Bank holiday monday

Carrion crow 

It's Late Spring Bank Holiday Summertime Seaside Special Monday so of course it's been pouring down all day. That, plus the unreliability of bank holiday public transport (stares hard at train companies) persuaded me out of any of the planned walks.

The blackbirds have been on their own for the dawn chorus lately, "my" blackbird and the ones at the station and the corner of the road battling it out for an hour before getting themselves some breakfast. One of the woodpigeons sometimes gets a quick burst of song in around 5am but he's very much an outlier. The rest of the woodpigeons and the collared dove can't be bothered before seven, the wren has other things to do before nine and the robin is afternoons and evenings only.

The young carrion crows are being allowed out without an escort, spending most of their time digging round on one or the other field. One has taken to calling down the chimney, a disturbing sound rather like a donkey being sick. The young blue tits have been back in, still being supervised and fed by their parents. I felt a bit sorry for the adults, they looked exhausted and particularly bedraggled in the rain.

Blue tit

I've seen very few young spadgers, which is a shame as we're down one adult male. I saw a shape in the sycamores, it was only when I looked from the bedroom window that I could see it was the female sparrowhawk eating its prize. The fact there wasn't a huge commotion in the garden tells its own story.

Over at the school the lesser black-backs come in for the lunch break, on days like today when there isn't one they soon pack it in and go over to the Trafford Centre. The field is nearly always swathed with a flock of thirty-odd woodpigeons, all adult. Sometimes they're  joined by half a dozen of the pigeons from near the station, most times there's at least half a dozen magpies bouncing round out there.

We do have swifts but they're only showing themselves late teatimes, five or six of them swooping round over the older terraced houses down the road. I've never seen house martins round here but we've only been here since the sixties. The ones in Stretford town centre are back but not numerous, I'm yet to see the ones usually in Urmston.

Tomorrow's weather promises much of the same. It's good for the garden they say but as the garden's looking like an outpost of the Amazon rain forest I'm not convinced it needs this much coddling.