Birds, birds, birds

[la_marquise]

It's just the kind of day I like best: sunny intercut with shadows, warm enough for short sleeves but not too hot and not humid, washed over all with a clean light breeze to set the tree boughs dancing. And the garden is full of leaves and birds frantically catering to their nestlings. The first clutch of baby blue tits are fledged, perching in the hedge and on our St John's Wort bush to be fed by their bustling parents, their feathers still a little fluffy and awry, heads crowned with Tintin cow-licks. The fledgling long-tailed tits are still nest bound, judging from the industry of their parents -- and if there is a hard-working, more concerned and delightful garden bird, I don't know what it is. Juvenile sparrows are using our roof for take-off and landing practice, much to the bafflement of cats, glimpsing feathers and feet through the edges of the velux windows. Between all of them -- and the great tits and blackbirds, thrushes, starlings, collared doves, wood pigeons, robins, finches and magpies -- they are getting through our birdseed at epic speed. (The cats are largely uninterested: roof-top thumping must be stared at, of course, but rabbits on the nature reserve are more interesting, as, in the case of Mooncat, is dozing in the sun and glaring at neighbour cats who dare to wander past.)
I may have to go for a walk later, and see who and what is about on Coldhams Common.

Comments

[queenoftheskies.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a perfectly lovely day.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

It's clouded over a bit now, but it's still very pleasant.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I love this vivid description--thank you.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

It really is lovely here. Mooncat has just come in after stopping to smell the flowers, with a pollen-y nose. (She does like to help cross-fertilize things. Her long fur is a great vector for grass seeds, too.)

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I remember England in spring, it's a vivid memory though it was 1972. Absolutely enchanting.

[uk-sef.livejournal.com]

On the grounds that there are allegedly kingfishers by the water at the far end of Coldham's Common, there could be kingfisher babies too. My snacklets (from the cats' point of view) are mostly robins, blackbirds and starlings at the moment.

[http://users.livejournal.com/la_marquise_de_/]

I will go and look! Kingfishers are birds I've never seen.