Today there were a series of moments, familiar and curious.
There was a blackbird performing an extensive grooming session in the freshly turned earth and ash around the base of the currant bushes. It would scratch around its ear canal, on its offside, then flare its wings and pose for a while in a shaft of sunlight. Once warmed through it would go across to the little water trough and have a shower, before polishing off the last crumbs of Spikey’s biscuits, returning to its dust-bath and beginning to scratch again.
Meanwhile at the front of the house, I went to check the post lying on the doormat and there was a sparrow nestled on the concrete, trying to work out what to do with the chunk of peanut in his mouth. He rolled it around for a while before biting down, so that it broke into three or four pieces.
And in the late afternoon sun, a woodpecker appeared at the birdtable. This time it wasn’t the large male, but a little female, a far more fine-boned bird who could easily get under the roof of the bird-table and peck at the peanut feeder. This kept her busy for a while, levering out pieces of nut, but eventually she abandoned it, hopped onto the roof of the bird-table and evicted the sparrows on the wire, fatball feeder. After balancing on the top of it for a while, jabbing her beak into the fat, she skipped away.
p.s. Whilst putting out Spikey’s dinner in the semi-dark, I heard a skein of geese flying over. The sky was clear, but I couldn’t catch sight of them in the moonlight.
thekitchensinkbirdwatcher 