At the beginning of most episodes of soap operas, there is usually a brief scene-setting look about somewhere familiar from the soap’s fictional world; the bustling street market, the busy cafe. We have to re-acquaint ourselves with the people and atmosphere before the action, the drama, begins…but sometimes, very rarely, it doesn’t begin immediately.
Today has been something like that, quiet, with a number of old friends, but nothing of the frantic activity of the day before. The pair of starlings seem to have learnt from experience. Now they are collecting their nesting materials from the bare earth of the vegetable patch where they can lift off directly, hanging on to their twigs and straws, and fly away.
The blackbird came for breakfast, a bath and then retired to the hedge motel. The pair of long-tailed tits folded themselves into the peanut feeder with the wire cage, their tails poking out of the framework. A group of sparrows came and went eating steadily, anything they could lay their beaks to, whilst a couple of chaffinches monopolised the half coconut fat feeder, which now has more than enough space for them to perch on.
The garden faces east/west and catches the evening sun, where once again the pair of starlings are the last to leave – after a solid ten minutes spent tucking in to replenish their energy.
thekitchensinkbirdwatcher 