Blogs

Over the past few months, our birds' feathers have all generally improved - Vicky's, for example, have grown nicely where she had a bald spot for about six months. But our new adult magpie, Wendy, has surprised us. Slowly but surely, her off-white neck feathers have got whiter - whiter and whiter. Are we going to have to change Wendy's name to William?

I was watching a show called Time Team yesterday - it's an archeology show, digging holes all over Britain in pursuit of the truth about the past. Not controversial until you cross a bird lover!

Maggie never forgets to impress and delight all his many friends and acquaintances, human or bird. It's his 'thing', the complete network builder. Yesterday, for example, I left for work in the car, and a few hundred yards up the street, the neighbour's dog (not a bad chap, but he chases cars) - you guessed it, chased the car. As it happened, I then remembered something I had to take with me, and stopped the car to check the boot (that's the trunk, for our American friends) to see if I had remembered it.

Over the past few weeks our various baby birds have been gaining confidence and getting to know us better. At first when they come, they follow their parents around for food, then they try a bit for themselves, picking it up off the grass experimentally. (They have surprising difficulty when very young picking up their own food, even though they have already become accomplished fliers.)

Last Friday I was taking a water can up to the front gate to change the water in the bowl up there. Maggie was behind me pottering around. Suddenly I saw him running past me to beat me to the water bowl, getting there while I was still about six feet away, and then he stood facing me and drinking water. I had a nice chat with him, but the meaning of this action came home to me forcefully while I was walking back from the gate. He was trying to tell me that there was already water in the bowl and I didn't have to lug the big water can all that way.