It was a grey, cool and misty day and I was glad I had a lunchtime engagement to stop my being tempted to walk abroad in it. The black-headed gulls on the field across the road flitted in and out of the view of unaided eyesight. Luckily this is one of the few times of year one can safely point binoculars at a school and I confirmed the usual dozen birds.
The misty gloom didn't stop the collared dove singing in the morning. Today's random visitor in the back garden was a goldcrest, apparently on its own as the titmice weren't about until later. I'm pretty sure that goldcrests breed locally somewhere near the station but move on in the Autumn, over the past quarter-century I haven't tended to get them in the garden until late Autumn and then fairly sporadically. I think that like the Winter chiffchaffs and blackcaps they're just passing through and taking advantage of the amenities. The same could be true of the pied wagtails on the school field.
- Black-headed gull 3 overhead
- Collared dove 1
- Dunnock 1
- Feral pigeon 1
- Goldcrest 1
- Goldfinch 1
- Great tit 1
- House sparrow 7
- Jackdaw 2
- Long-tailed tit 7
- Magpie 2
- Rook 1
- Starling 5
- Woodpigeon 2
Somebody asked me why I wait until the next day to share these blog posts on social media. There's a simple reason: I do the first draft as a stream of consciousness then do a couple of passes at editing before getting a night's sleep, or what passes for one sometimes, and checking it again with a fresh pair of eyes. Most times it's fine, it makes as much sense as I ever do and I've caught all the errors imposed by autocorrect. Every so often I'll find that the mind's been quicker than my typing and I've let ideas run into each other or there's an ambiguous "it" that needs to be made clear. And once in a while I'll change my mind about the use of a picture. The "second edition" is the one that gets shared and it's the final version, flaws and all.
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