Fat Face

I heard the tawny owl hooting and a thrush repeating its song as I cleaned my teeth this morning. Jazzy and I walked down the field to 'dee-diddley' (goldcrest) 'wheeze' (greenfinch) 'trill' (robin) 'snort' (goldfinch) and 'phew' (bullfinch). While Jazzy was busy checking out interesting smells I spotted and snapped this bruiser of a mouser staring at us imperiously from the far side of the Donkey Field.

We carried on beating the bounds, saw a small flock of Canada geese fly down to the lake and a mallard sitting on its nest. When we got to our former sales area I heard, 'tick, tick, tick, tick' and a churring 'techtechtechtech',  the alarm calls of dunnocks and a wren. Keen to get a pic of the wren I moved closer to the shop structure to try to pinpoint it. Who should emerge from under some netting? Fat Face! The brave birds drummed him away. I'll certainly add my, "Gerroff!" if I see him again. Sir David Attenborough has warned that cats are killing huge numbers of birds in British gardens.

As for Fat Face's chubby chops I've read that these are known as shields or stud jowls. They're secondary sexual characteristics in tom cats. The fatter a tom cat's face is the more testosterone present.

Today's poem is Words by Edward Thomas. https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/words-2/

I quite like the idea of the words choosing the poet rather than vice versa and the description of their qualities and the way our English words connect to the earth and various parts of the country. I'm not a poet but have been physically thrilled, though maybe not to the point of ecstasy, by a particularly apt, pleasant-sounding or novel word. :)