Local patch

Barton Clough 

I found it incredibly difficult to get going today so I contented myself with a walk around the local patch and didn't bother moving on anywhere else. The heavy, headachy weather didn't help any but it seemed to provoke a lot of birdsong so I won't complain too much about it.

Barton Clough 

Seeing most of the small birds was very hard indeed and nearly always they'd be passing silhouettes or tail feathers disappearing into foliage. The exceptions were the whitethroats singing from the tops of hawthorns and the flock of goldfinches giddying about in the cherry trees by the old freight line. It was nice to see so many goldfinches and unusual seeing so many together before the thistledown season.

Juvenile goldfinch 

The large gulls have abandoned the factory unit rooftops. I get the impression the rooves were being used for liaisons while the serious breeding activity was going on atop the big units on the other side of the canal.

• Black-headed gull 1 overhead 
• Blackbird 6, 3 singing
• Blackcap 2 singing
• Blue tit 2
• Carrion crow 1
• Chaffinch 1 singing
• Chiffchaff 3, 2 singing 
• Dunnock 1
• Feral pigeon 1
• Goldfinch 29, 9 juveniles
• Great tit 3, 1 singing
• Greenfinch 4
• House sparrow 1
• Lesser black-back 2 overhead
• Magpie 3
• Pied wagtail 1
• Robin 2
• Song thrush 1 singing
• Whitethroat 2 singing
• Woodpigeon 5, 1 singing
• Wren 2, 1 singing

Putting out the wheelie bin tonight I accidentally kicked one of the hedgehogs, it had rolled itself into a ball on one side of the path. I felt dead guilty but at least I hadn't run over the poor beast with the bin. I left it some cat food by way of an apology (I'm not robbing the cat any, she's being very picky lately and more than once I've had to remind her that it wasn't so long ago she was dining on spiders and bits of old mouse). Both hedgehog and cat food had gone when I checked later.

Hedgehog