Tuning

The welcome early morning singing in this wood is refreshing after winter months. Most of the participants are robins, song thrushes, chaffinches and dunnocks, with extra contributions from various tits. Mostly it's tuning up but at times swells into full performance mode.

The well turned-out female blackbird has been present each morning from before Christmas. Usually I hear a familiar 'chuck chuck' sound in the scrub and shrub layer. Then she appears on the wall with an entitled look waiting for the scraps to appear
.

There has been no regular male bird here until two days ago. Perhaps something will come of that. There are still more robins than I would expect but the five may have reduced to three. Tits briefly increased to four species when a long-tailed tit decided to join the others at the bird table.

The watchers-on above are always conspicuously polite in waiting for the smaller birds to feed before they come down. Good manners like this somehow never wholly erase their sinister reputation.