Extraordinary sparrow

I can hear you all thinking "what's extraordinary about that sparrow?"

It's extraordinary to me because it's the first one I've since since we moved from Wiltshire to Oxfordshire four and a half years ago.  It was the same when we first arrived at the farm in Wiltshire - no sparrows.  Eventually, as we planted strips in the arable fields and field margins with Nectar & Pollen Mix and Wild Bird Cover, we were rewarded with a small colony of Tree Sparrows.

Sparrows were the common bird of my childhood.  It seems extraordinary to me that sparrows thrived in the urban wastelands of a Northern industrial town half a century ago (which I hasten to add is very much greener today than it was then), but have disappeared from our lush countryside today.  So I am heartened by this one that was singing high in the hedgerow where I couldn't focus on it.

The common birds round here today are the Tom Tits.  I liked the way, in the extra, that I could see its little tongue as its beak was wide open holding the sunflower seed.