This morning...

...I listened to bird sounds.
It was early. My three cats were asleep. Two were in the kitchen and Popeye woke up and came out of the house with me to the swing, and went back to sleep.
But moments later I realised there was a very bedraggled female blackbird on the willow tree. I went up to her and she looked like maybe a cat had caught her by the neck and she had escaped. She was a mess. I can only assume she had been playing dead to survive. She tried hard to clean her neck and head, and other feathers, and she was getting nowhere.
I saw the bird bath had dried up so I got some water and filled it, and stayed by the blackbird. I was worried she had young to take care of somewhere. She tolerated me being a few feet of her, and flew down to the bird bath. A very short while later she was back on the willow branch in perfectly groomed condition. Then she flew off, but came back into the bushes.

I was glad it wasn't my lot responsible for her bedraggled condition.

I went back to my swing and Popeye, and started the bird ID again with the ChirpOMatic app. I already knew I could hear a blackbird amongst the noises. The app said, among other birds, there was definitely a blackbird and a robin. I did several recordings, until I was sure which was the robin and which was the blackbird.

In each square is a series of calls both birds made over a period of 20 minutes or so. In the case of these two birds I have done the series of calls in a linear fashion. It is just what I saw in my head with this new mapping of my cochlear processor, and the way it perceived those two sounds.

These were drawn with my eyes closed or half closed as I concentrated on the sounds. At the bottom of the robin square, something happened. Actually all the birds got alarmed. So looked up quickly. I had heard it a split moment before...a crow was flying over. You can see the sound changed a bit on the robin square.

Later in the day the male blackbird is coming back time and time again with worms, and going into the bushes. Usually the male and female blackbirds take turns, but whether she is having a rest today I don't know.

I do know I have 3 blackbird nests in my back garden, and 1 in the front garden. And worm feeding is taking place with all 4.

The male blackbird seems to sound a bit different later in the day when he is telling mama blackbird he is bringing worms to the nest. It is probably hard to talk with a mouthful of worms.

So, this is my entry today for my challenge to myself of a pic every day in 2017.

[This is my artist's perception of sounds as they are now after being drastically changed after the remapping of my cochlear processor. I am readjusting to the different sounds, which are actually vastly different, as it is now suggested I was never mapped properly in the first place which is why I have struggled the last few years.]