Twitching with life...

Goldfinch glory

I like watching the birds in the garden, particularly at this time of year. It’s somehow life affirming watching these pretty creatures busying themselves around our bird feeders. The girls love it too and are pretty good at identifying who’s who. Niomi particularly loves my book of all the different bird songs. Last weekend she sat opposite me, asking me to name the birds from their songs. I did impressively well – scoring 100%. She thinks I’m an ornithological genius. I haven’t the heart to tell her that actually I’m just good at reading upside down and can see the names of the breeds in the book as she holds it in front of her. Tanya and Emily clocked on to what I was doing and just thought it hilarious. Tweety tweet tweet – errrrmmmm….ringed plover. Tweet twit tweet – ah yes, that’ll be the red throated diver. I am the god of birdsong. Niomi did actually consider the prospect of me reading upside down but, I assume because she can’t do it, immediately discounted that as a possibility, so carried on amazed at her dad’s prowess. She also has some very interesting ideas about the birds. "There's a boy and girl robin" she said. "They're married. You can tell which one's a girl by her eyes." I must confess I've no idea if she's right.

A little later her less over-trusting older sibling joined me for the annual big garden birdwatch run by the RSPB. It basically involves sitting patiently for an hour counting the maximum number of birds of different species that you see in your garden. It always amazes me just how many, differing species and how many birds we see each year. Sadly the woodpecker and nuthatch that we’ve seen recently didn’t make a reappearance, neither (unsurprisingly) did the tawny owl that we regularly hear roundabout. But we did get plenty of goldfinches, greenfinches, chaffinches, bullfinches, great tits, blue tits and a host of others. Watching the birds reminds me of the vitality of life in the midst of winter. And as January 
wanes, the light takes on a slightly brighter hue, the air feels slightly warmer and the first signs of life reappear on the ground. A bit to go, but the end of winter is now not so far away…

Keep your beak to yourself Mr Woodpecker