Feed the Birds

16 December 2013

9 a.m. four magpies meet in boisterous dispute in the front garden across the road.

The sky was full of low cloud, so low that the top of the television transmitter was touching its base.

A flock of about twenty redpolls was feeding on birch catkins. At first glance when they flew up from the bottom of the hedge I'd thought they were blue tits but when the whole flock flew up I realised that it would be highly unlikely to see so many together. I had a chance to look at them again when a few of them started working through the branches of a neighbour's silver birch.

PC, our friend's black cat, checks out our Christmas carrier, pulling at a tempting twist of gold ribbon until the bag falls over. 'There's nothing breakable in there' Diana assures us.

The fat-ball feeder is probably the attraction for a single long-tailed tit that I hear, then see, in our rowan as I walk out of the front door this afternoon.

'Spend two pence on feeding the birds and what do you get? - FAT BIRDS!'

'Mary Poppins' (the movie) quoted in 'Saving Mr Banks'

Black-headed gulls are the most conspicuous birds as we head into town. They're gathering at the athletics stadium.