The garden has been busy today and for the first time this year, I have seen a bird collecting nesting material – a ring dove which scavenged some straws from the rosebed mulch and flew off across the school roof. This was good news. I’ve come to the conclusion that ring doves are elegant but not very bright and previous years have seen pairs try to nest in our gutters, despite our best endeavours…and of course they get flooded out at the first rain shower.
Between periodic invasions by noisy groups of sparrows and chaffinches, some of our cast of characters are returned. One of the blackbirds, after a lengthy bath, sat on the fence to sing….lovely, but not as good as our star vocalist, the robin. I’ve never really thought of robins as great singers, but this one finds the tallest branch and sings his heart out.
The greenfinch returned to the peanut feeder. It seems to prefer solitude and this morning the sunshine made it glow ‘old gold’ rather than any shade of green.
The reed bunting came back to the apple tree, but would not come down to the grass and the food, possibly because there was a fairly stiff breeze blowing. In high winds, the little birds are tossed around and cannot land safely, instead sticking their heads out of the hedge, waiting for a suitable gap in the weather.
thekitchensinkbirdwatcher 