There was a story in the news media about a woman who’d put three duck eggs bought in a supermarket into an incubator and all three hatched. The ducklings were pictured and were perfect fluffy yellow bundles with downy plumage. I thought of them this morning as a slightly ragged blue-tit, with faded colours, attacked the peanut feeder under the bird-table roof to prize out pieces of nut which it then re-arranged in its beak before presenting it to a band-box neat fledgling on a branch above. The fledgling had a beautiful yellow chest, spotlessly clean. Later, I saw it apparently drive off another fledgling with an oddly coloured plumage, but I didn’t see the incident clearly enough to be more specific.
The motley collection of blackbirds haunted the garden and seem to have resolved themselves into one pair with fairly mature fledglings and one parent, possibly two, who’ve parked the very young fledgling with the spotted plumage and the lack of tail, on a high branch of the cherry tree.
Apart from those busy families, a large group of jackdaws were a positive nuisance, driving all the little birds into the shadows, until driven away in their turn; two sparrow fledglings squabbled over the coconut feeder; four or five ring doves ate peacefully for once; a couple of chaffinches visited the bird-table so that their lovely colours could be seen and the pigeons just ate.
thekitchensinkbirdwatcher 