I’m reminded of Maggie Smith’s line in Downron Abbey – “What is a weekend?” For the upper classes and, it seems, retired people, the concept does not exist. Every day is a holiday and it is easy to lose track of the days, as I did this week. We were all geared up for our grocery delivery when I realised it was Friday, not Saturday. Part of the problem is the bin day – it has been Friday for the last 36 years in Nottingham, but here it is Thursday. At the back of my mind I am often a day out at the end of the week. Eventually, I suppose, I will get used to it.
It’s the Big Garden Birdwatch today. It was also yesterday, but I always think of it as a weekend activity. Records of 350,000 birds have been submitted so far (10.30 Saturday) with the House Sparrow coming out on top with Blue Tit second and Starling 3rd. The Wood Pigeon has fallen to 4th, nudged out by Blue Tits overnight. In Cambridgeshire, the county I am in today, the order is currently Wood Pigeon, House Sparrow, Starling. We have had no House Sparrows since we moved in and very few Starlings, so we might be bucking the trend in this garden.
I am going to finish this post, have a late breakfast and spend an hour with a notebook, recording birds. It always seems better when you have something unusual to report, but even if you don’t, it’s all part of the process – even seeing no birds is some sort of result. When you see how some bird populations have declined over the years (and set this against the broader picture of a general decline in numbers) I wonder if there will be a year when that is the report I submit. It’s not a good thought.
I noted we had bushtits visiting our bird feeder here the other day. I have not noticed them before. They are on the tiny side.
I never saw “Downton Abbey”. I come across a reference to a book called “Downton Tabby”, a feline parody of “Downton Abbey”. The same quote could apply. 🙂
I thought you called all members of the tit family chickadees. I looked bushtits up and found that they are related to our long-tailed tits, but neither of them are considered to be part of the tit family these days. So complicated . . .
Dpwnton Tabby sounds like it would be an excellent book.
Our chickadees look a bit like your coal tits. They are in different genera. This is what I found in Wikipedia, but the classification may have changed. I will have to check Cornell University’s Ornithology website. I seem to remember at some point the classification changed.
“The coal tit (Periparus ater), is a small passerine bird in the tit family, Paridae”
“The chickadees are a group of North American birds in the family Paridae included in the genus Poecile”
Paridae ill do for me. All the other stuff, including the DNA analysis is a bit beyond me. 🙂
Welcome to the retiree’s concept of days. Maggie’s intonation of that line is perfection – demonstrating she has no idea what it is
One of the great dramatic lines, along with “A handbaaaaaaag?” and “We’re going to need considerably bigger buns.”
If I had taken part, chaffinches would have been at the top of the list.
I remember them being common on all the feeders I have ever had – apart from now – we haven’t seen a single chaffinch in the garden so far.