Day 315 The Big Garden Birdwatch

Each year the RSPB asks the nation to take part in a Big Garden Birdwatch.  This year we could observe our gardens for one hour on any of three days, 29, 30 or 31 January.  Some years, the birds have stubbornly stayed away as if they know that I'm watching.  This year was slightly different.  The parakeets that I've blipped and written about before,  clearly decided that they wanted to be the stars of the show and at one point there were four of the little blighters perched on the rose arch.  Given that until recently they've eschewed our garden in favour of 'better' ones, I am beginning to think that their visit was planned!  In the end my total tally was 4 parakeets, 1 robin, 1 blue tit, 1 wood pigeon and 1 magpie.  The lesser spotted woodpecker who visited yesterday did not return and neither did the regular blackbirds appear.

A visitor who did appear and stayed for a very long visit is featured in extras.  Either he's been in a fight or has mange, not sure which.  You can judge how bold he is by how near he came to the house when I took this picture.  Clearly he was hoping for a meal so we tried him on the vegan cheese which was making the fridge smell rather unpleasant.  I had believed that foxes will eat anything but apparently not vegan cheese!  He stared at in disgust for a moment, lifted his leg over the ornamental hedgehog and marched off!

Day 315 is 45 weeks of restrictions due to the pandemic.  I think that here in the UK, we'll still  be far from 'normal' when we hit the year mark.