Gorgeous

Gorgeous boys (?). Whoever knew that starlings had such colourful plumage? Not me.

A great flock of sparrows were singing their hearts out sheltering under the canopy of the half-dismantled fairground at the pier-head. These two were sitting separately in a sheltered spot, oblivious to cars and people. They look content to me, feathers puffed against the first wind-chill of autumn. It was COLD - but then I'd just swum fifty length of our local pool, recently opened after ten months' closure. Sheer delight but my energy reserves were low and I was chilled to the bone for the first time this season.

Looking up a link for sparrow song I learned that these great flocks are more likely swelled by incoming migrants from the North and Eastern Europe. All my life I'd seen their throngs as them gathering to set off for the south, not so it seems.

Even more interestingly their song is being studied in a challenge to Chomsky's views on the origins of language. Time to set out the bird-feeders.