Epaulettes

Big chick waits deep in cover for another beakful of ivy berries, just the occasional squawk to tell its parents where it is.  Alas, that's also a bit of a giveaway to the local cats, though it's managed to stay out of trouble so far.

I may have been a little premature a few days ago when I said that it was alone, as at one stage there were two identical big chicks asking for food.  I must say I'm confused as to whether there is more than one brood in the garden.  There are certainly territorial squabbles, so that might be the case.

Two mornings on from when this was taken, I seem to have fallen even further behind with blipping.  Time both contracts and dilates in these strange times.  I never seem to get as much done in a day as I feel I should with apparently so few distractions, the day simply disappears.  On the other hand, I find it difficult to remember what happened more than 24 hours ago, unless I wrote it down.

What I do remember about Wednesday is that I had been premature in concluding that Gus's tummy upset was settled. There was a resurgence in the evening, not helped by him having scavenged a white bread sandwich of some sort in the woods, before I could stop him.  This meant several trips to the woods during the night, and C losing most of the night's sleep. The positive side to this was that as I stood outside the house at one in the morning, I could clearly hear the bittern booming from a mile or so away. That was a new record for the garden.