Mum would have called this a "Polly Dishwasher". It's a Grey Wagtail - as a child I always thought they had got the name wrong as it had a lot of yellow on it - surely it was a YELLOW Wagtail? Here we call them Water Wagtails as they are always seen by water. We regularly see them down by the river, an also on our land as we have a stream at the back and the two ponds at the front. I never realized they were rare - let alone on the Red List. I see more of these than the common Pied Wagtail. Aren't we privileged?
Black Caps - male preening on the left and female with the brown head. Not at all rare (over 1,200,000 breeding pairs) but you don't SEE them that often. That said, I have seen them along the valley in spring and these ones have been nesting in the copse beside the paddock/stream here.
There are lots of Thrushes around too. Several have nested around the paddock and we see them regularly flying about. This one came and posed by the pond for me.
This young female blackbird has been raised on cat biscuits by her father Spot. He has been coming regularly to pinch leftovers from the outside cats' bowls. He has brought up two children so far, a cock and a hen bird. They were also coming near the bowls to be fed (despite cats about!) They have survived so far.
We have also had Robins, Wrens, Spotted Flycatchers, Swallows, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Nuthatches, Magpies and LOTS of Sparrows nesting on our plot . . .
Finally, there will be some more Meadow Browns in the future - spotted these two mating on a track up the hill yesterday . . .
