Home thoughts

Goldfinch
Feeling the cold after coming out of the bath.

I was cursing myself for not getting round to renewing my monthly travel card yesterday when I remembered it would have been a waste because we have no public transport today — we don't have trains on Sundays and no buses are coming our way because the A56 is closed for the Manchester Half Marathon. (It's probably as well to explain here: like many English towns the roads aren't laid out in a grid, rather they're a sequence of tributary streams. In our case all roads lead to Chester Road so if that's closed none of our local buses get through.) Ordinarily, it being Sunday and me being bone idle, this wouldn't be an issue but having somebody high-handedly decide we don't deserve public transport irks me. I wouldn't cry if it was Chorlton or Didsbury that gets closed down for the day for the next Great Manchester Run or Half Marathon (pigs will fly first).

My mood wasn't enhanced by reports of a yellow-browed warbler at Irlam Locks this morning and not being able to get there.

Spadgers

The cooler weather's brought a bit more activity into the back garden, the chance of a bath and an easy meal is always attractive on a raw day. This has given me the opportunity to get to grips with one of the sparrow families, the relict of the old Team Silver. It's a looser grouping of about a dozen birds based in the brambles and ivies on the railway embankment on the other side. They fly into the garden clockwise, usually in twos and threes, today they flew in en masse, confirming my guess at the size of the flock. The old Team Tawny was based by the railway station and used to fly anticlockwise into the garden, I'm only ever seeing a couple of birds from that way, always a pair of old cock sparrows. I've a feeling that if that family's still around it's moved over to join the family on the other side of the station that's still settling down after the scrub clearance necessary for extending the platform the other year. I'm definitely not able to differentiate the families by eye anymore, the dozen that just flew in included a dark cock sparrow, one of the silver-cheeked cocks and a hen so dark that at first I mistook her for a dunnock.

Talking off dunnocks, one's just been chased out of the dog rose bush by a robin after it offered the robin a nice time dearie.

Blue tit

My delight at getting more than just the customary fleeting glances of the coal tits was tempered by watching the ferocious way the cock tore a rose bud apart to get at the insects hiding inside.

Across the road the usual dozen black-headed gulls are sharing the field with rooks, jackdaws and magpies, nearly all the woodpigeons having started their mid-Autumn holidays a couple of days ago. A loud ruckus as I was contemplating doing the washing up turned out to be a first-Winter black-headed gull that had somehow annoyed a rook. For the next five minutes the rook chased the gull around the field, the gull screaming all the while. A magpie that tried to join in the fun was reminded that a rook's quite a big crow really. Eventually the rook tired of the chase and settled down to feed with its mates. The gull made sure to land on the opposite side of the field.