I was very pleased to see a group of six long-tailed tits on our bird table in the garden this weekend. I do occasionally see them in the trees and hedgerows but it is not easy to see them clearly when they are flitting about so quickly, so it  was a treat to be able to get a closer look.

We seem to have more predatory birds about than we did years ago; not just kestrels but sparrow hawks, owls (mainly tawny owls; I haven’t seen our resident barn owl for a while now) and our local buzzards who always look as though they are not in a hurry. It amuses me that crows often mob the buzzards as if they (the crows) were blameless when it comes to pinching other birds’ eggs or fledglings!

Rob