The house martins have returned to the village. The first pair have come all the way from Africa and immediately taken up their old nest site – in the gentlemen’s toilets. We’ll have to make sure that no-one shuts the door.
The circular water tray at the base of the hedge motel is in shade and the water greens over. This morning I scrubbed the plastic tray and cleaned the gravel before replacing it, placing the large stone that weighs it down and filling it with clean water….sparrows, starlings, blackbirds splashed about half the day. A wood pigeon came to drink as did a couple of chaffinches. They don’t seem to bathe in water, at least I haven’t seen one, but they do love a dust bath. The wood ash from the stove is tipped onto the vegetable patch and the chaffinches seem to prefer to nestle, belly down, into the grey ash to rustle their wings and set up a plume of dust.
It was quiet today and there is a strong sense that important things are happening elsewhere. A neighbour, shouting to me from across the road, says that she has blackbirds feeding young on her lawn. Perhaps we will begin to see youngsters too.
thekitchensinkbirdwatcher 