Birdwatchers' brunch

A rather lazy day and blip. It has rained all day and after my long bath, I tried catching up with calls I needed to make. Whilst brewing coffee, I peered out of the rear window at the bird feeding station which was experiencing a rush hour, despite the hard rain falling.

The 'double decker' feeder I featured yesterday, (which MaxEllis so aptly named for me yesterday), had five goldfinches feeding avidly from its four portholes, while many other birds milled about on the other feeders. Our coconut shell that is filled with a type of fat-ball mixture (which Christina likened to frozen vomit last week) was busy too.

Suddenly the goldfinches all scattered for the Ash tree, so I presumed one of the neighbours cats had arrived, despite the teeming rain, to scare them away. But no! This 'charm of goldfinches' early-warning system must have clocked the approaching kestrel flying along the slope, across all the back gardens, just as it did yesterday. It didn't swoop round the feeding station today; instead it flew round in the bottom of our garden, then through the sycamore tree and started to climb up above it, to hover overhead, as only kestrels can. I called Helena but by the time she came downstairs the kestrel had climbed high and then turned away over the house and up The Horns valley. No food for it today at our feeding station.

When I came back from shopping, we had a birdwatchers brunch again. Helena has started to use the 'The Birdwatcher's Three-year Record Book' by John Hills, which she bought soon after we moved in here. But checking the entries showed we had hardly used it since 2006. It is a really good book, abd we can't afford a new one. The few comments that had been written there were very interesting, describing the birds and the weather and in doing so it transported me back to those earlier days.

When Pip was here on Friday, we had keenly looked at another book called 'What's that bird? a guide to British birds' by Peter Hayman and Michael Everett. I can't recommend it highly enough for its excellent paintings of the birds, in categories which make it easy to compare and identify them. It shows images of each of the birds in flight, as well as standing, whilst also illustrating any unique facets to aid identification, such as the 'Tree pipit's song flight, which ascends and 'parachutes' back to the same or new perch'. You can just see a kestrel featured on the top right of the page.

The light was going fast so I snapped my brunch before I started eating it on the table, where you can see the page I was reading from this book, with the Birdwatcher's Diary visible in the background.