Throggies and Maggies

This eager nest building thrush tugged and tugged for nearly 10 minutes at a piece of nylon twine wrapped around a tree branch. She/he eventually gave up and sat nearby in a big huffy. (Must be a female thrush).

The garden is alive with nest building thrushes, blackbirds, finches, linnets, dunnocks, wrens, robins, and the damned maggies. Sadly whichever ends up laying eggs the chances are that magpies will steal them or the young and pull the nest out. As every year.

When we moved up here the hedgerows that form our garden boundaries were full of nests but the farmer tells me he's not allowed to shoot magpies anymore and they've become a real menace.

When I was a kid I lived next to a farm and the owner would pay one shilling (5p) for every maggies egg we could give him.