Bank holiday weather (dreich)

They're out there.
Somewhere.

It was bank holiday Good Friday so of course it was cold and heavily overcast. The trains are running but not the buses so I decided to catch up with some of the work needing doing in the back garden — I've only chopped back half the rambling rose and the prunings need chopping into the bin, there's a pile of sycamore seedlings needing getting out and the path in front of the living room window is the fullest border in the garden (a planting of Lysimachia "Firecracker" has gone walkabout). All of which still needs doing as the moment I stepped out it started pouring down.

The birds had been mostly staying undercover anyway, most of them have nests on the go and are too busy collecting insects for hungry mouths to be showing off for elderly birdwatchers. The spadgers are hoovering up aphids from the tops of the sycamores and the bottoms of the blackcurrant bushes. The titmice are in and out at the sunflower seed feeders like a flash, getting a quick bite to eat before fidgeting around in the trees for caterpillars. I had worried we'd lost the coal tits over Winter but a male's been singing by the station platform so I'm hoping all is well. 

The male blackbird spends most of his time singing, the female doesn't stray far from the nest when she's foraging. The dunnocks are around but are hardly ever seen, I still worry about that business when one got itself trapped in the washhouse.

The goldfinches stop by a couple of times a day. For some reason this often coincides with the male robin's patrol of the territory. This time of year the goldfinches are too busy for their habitual fussing about and the robin is too intent on guarding its territory to be fussed with them. Come Midsummer they'll all be so frazzled they'll be pecking at each other whenever they meet. The wren seems only to do a morning patrol.

For all that I know they've all got nests on the go I only know where three are and those by accident, I make a point of not looking for them so I'm not tempted to have a nosy and disturb them. As luck would have it the three I do know are pretty much inaccessible to me with my creaky knees so I'll be leaving well alone.

There are three magpie nests I know for sure are in use and just the one carrion crow nest despite there being two pairs knocking about. I think I've escaped having a jackdaw nest in the chimney this year, unlike some of my neighbours. The collared doves and woodpigeons are favouring conifers this year.

I've kept hearing a mistle thrush and a couple of times one's flown over. It was only last week I found they were nesting near the shops. They've got a huge territory with neighbours having similarly big territories based in Lostock Park and Moss Park.

I'm fretting about the year list. For absolutely no reason, it's roughly where I was this time last year and I haven't had a trip out to a seabird city yet. Every couple of days I have to remind myself that the numbers don't matter, they're only there to prod me into getting out and getting some exercise. And every year I have to remind myself that Spring passage migrants don't tend to linger so there's no point in beating myself up because I'm not haring about hither and thither chasing after them. I'd be a terrible twitcher, I'd have exploded in frustration by the middle of January.