Starlings

25 January 2014

South Ossett, West Yorkshire

It's like old times; a small flock of starlings flies across the road while more are lined up on a television aerial. The damp mown grass of the nearby sports field must be an attraction for them. Perhaps some of their regular winter feeding grounds are now flooded.

It's months since we saw a starling at our bird feeders but when I think back to ten, more like twenty years ago when they would turn up, not every day but perhaps several times a month, they would come to our bird table for scraps, which we don't have any more.

We replaced the old timber bird table with a shepherd's crook feeder with a little mesh tray attached to the pole. I thought that this mesh tray would provide a compact, easy to clean, alternative to the bird table but I found it difficult to clean as food and bird droppings lodged in the mesh and as you couldn't easily detach it from the pole to give it a thorough clean. I don't remember it being very popular.

As Wakefield crematorium, overlooking the Calder Valley around Pugneys, there's not a lot of bird life this morning. A solitary wood pigeon perches in a tree, looking suitably sombre, but the robin, perching in the hedge by the archwaythat takes you through to a meadow area, adds a more cheerful note.

Geese on the move

It's been a mild but wet January. Geese are on the move; I hear them honking close to the house after dark but, opening the studio rooflight window and sticking my head out, I can't see them going by.