Urban Chick

Today, I went into the city centre to do a bit of shopping. I was spectacularly unsuccessful at that, but at least it gave me a chance to do a bit of urban birding. Many of the shrub beds were full of house sparrows, and on one of the main shopping streets there were loads of these young starlings scavenging for food. They were hanging out with the pigeons and were very tame. This one is perched on a plastic chair in front of a food stall. I went down to the river for a little stroll. It was eerily quiet because most of the buildings down there are offices and factories which were closed for the bank holiday. As I expected, the sand martins have all but gone - I saw 2 - but there were grey wagtails and a pied wagtail, and even some very young moorhens down there. There were also quite a few gulls circling overhead. I've noticed quite a few heading west over our house recently before nightfall on the way to their roost on a reservoir on the moorland fringes. No kingfishers today, but a splendid red admiral butterfly on the buddleia on the river bank.