Goldcrest from Wikipedia

As I brushed my teeth this morning, I could hear a Goldcrest calling. It’s a high-pitched squeaky call, and not very attractive. It has the advantage of being easy to recognise, which is good for a partially deaf man with a poor ability to recognise bird song. Unfortunately, I couldn’t see it in the garden, but as we saw one several times yesterday it’s already recorded for the week.

I don’t have a photo of my own to use, as they flit about a lot and never seem to settle long enough to get more than a blur or a shaking twig. However, Wikipedia has come to the rescue.

For readers in the USA – the Golden Crowned Kinglet is very similar, possibly even the same species. No doubt a committee will one day sit and pontificate, and on deciding they are identical they will, as they have done so many times in recent years, rename our bird the Eurasian Golden Crowned Kinglet, because all European birds must, these days, be named in comparison to birds of the USA. If you think I bang on about the Cultural Imperialism of the USA in terms of spelling, just wait until I get going on bird names.

t was a good day for birds yesterday, with the Goldcrest, a Greenfinch, a Long-tailed Tit and a Wren. The Wren kept skittering along the fence, displaying its distinctive profile. After the breeding season birds tend to flock in mixed species groups. Scientists say it is mainly  about improved feeding efficiency ( as the birds share information of food sources) and protection against predators. The flock that visits us is 20-30 birds, which fills the garden, but is quite small in flock terms. It is mainly Blue Tits and Great Tits, with one or two others tagging along.

Goldfinches (adult and adolescent)

I didn’t have my camera and by the time I had gone to my study and returned with it, no birds. It’s always the way.

I tried the word study there, but I’m not sure it is quite right. It sounds too grand for a very small 3rd bedroom and implies a level of furnishing that I don’t have. I’m still sorting my newly assembled book cases and have a number of boxes piled on the floor. Office, writing room, spare bedroom (though that would be to confuse it with the real spare bedroom) or small room (which again, could be confusing to those using it as a euphemism for toilet). It is one of those unresolved issues. It could be a very small man cave, but it’s not really that exciting.  Any ideas?

I can’t remember what I meant to blog about, I just remember that it was going to start with the Goldcrest calling and then move on to something that seemed important. Then Julia called me through to breakfast, we started chatting about why you can get bread-makers, slow-cookers, rice boilers  and soup-makers but not porridge-makers, and gradually the thoughts dispersed and the birds replaced them.

 

I have also arranged my prescriptions with the local pharmacy and spoken to Rheumatology about moving to Peterborough so that’s a few things ticked off my list. (I add those bits as a piece of 21st Century lifestyle trivia to help the PhD student I imagine using this blog as source material in 2125). It’s going to be a funny old thesis that he writes – he’ll think we are all cyclists with bridge and bird fascinations, bibulous bibliophilic old buffers or grumpy old men, stretching from Aussie arctophiles in Ballarat to no-mates numismatists in Peterborough. If I’d moved a few more miles I’d be living in Bretton and that last sentence would have been much better. Or if I’d stayed in Nottingham.

Anyway, rambling over. I’ve just spent a couple of minutes trying to get rid of a phantom comma – turns out I need to clean the computer screen.

A Great Tit on the sunflower seed feeder – it only lasted six months before the squirrel managed to break it a variety of attacks.