Practise, practise, practise!

We have started noticing that our front garden, between house and garage, is something of a race straight.  And the main participants are sparrows, it seems.  There is little sign of a shortage of the little speed merchants, abundant as we are with huge hedges in this particular AONB.

And for a few days we have also noticed that the feeder is being frequented by families, parents and offspring.  The parents zip straight to the perches or the tray and feed, while the juveniles stop just short of the feeder, wings abuzz, before abandoning the process and returning to the hedge, or the fence.  And this leafless branch became a gathering point for the family (ies?), post-feed or post-attempt.  You can see some of the juveniles whirring their wings, and the one on the left is perched very uncertainly on a slanted twig.

It's a beautiful world . . . quite often.