Home thoughts

Blackbird 

No public transport again today because of the running, so I stayed home. I saw in the dawn from the wrong end this morning and was rather surprised not to hear the blackbirds until daybreak. They might be running out of steam, they'll have mouths to feed. The robin, collared doves and woodpigeons joined them almost immediately but the dawn chorus barely lasted half an hour. After twenty minutes' breather the woodpigeons kicked in again, the others were quiet until mid-morning when they joined in with the wren.

The spadgers were noisy in the rambling rose, they'd discovered I'd refilled all the feeders and they were giving the sunflower seeds some hammer while they waited for the magpies to be finished with the bird bath. A small group of youngsters (I should behave myself and not call them spadgelings) is already going about their business unsupervised by the cock sparrows.

Magpie

It's been a while since there's been any black-headed gulls on the school playground and a while yet until they come back. First thing each morning there's a swirl of large gulls — varying combinations of herring gulls and lesser black-backs — around the school yard and a passage of lesser black-backs overhead in the evening. I've grown used to there being a third-calendar year herring gull hanging around every teatime this week, it was a surprise that it wasn't there today.

I'm not sure what's going on with the magpies. There were at least four nests on the go but I haven't seen any youngsters about even though things have gone quiet at the nests. Perhaps I blinked and missed them.

Also this week there's been a couple, possibly a pair, of swifts swooping about the rooftops each evening. This evening there was a bit of a bonanza, I couldn't work out if there were five or seven of them, it was hard to keep tabs. One pair were definitely a-courting, even mating in mid-air high above the house.