Tit-Window

I intended to lurk in Epping Forest today in the hope of getting a snap of Prince Harry visiting the Queen's Commonwealth Canopy project. I'd heard that he would be doing some pond-dipping and was already toying with frog and prince for my story. Unfortunately I had to deal with some important admin so couldn't get away. 

I then got a call from my daughter telling me that a sequence for the acclaimed Netflix The Crown was being filmed in town outside Weatherspoons. That bucked me up a bit and off I went to try to get a blip out of it. Nothing doing that I could see. :(

I sat on a box in the lovely sunshine watching my busy long-tailed-tits. They were going in and out of the overgrown disused glasshouse. I suspected that their nest would be in there and didn't expect to be able to locate it in the bramble tangle. Then I saw one of them, I thought, collecting nest material from a ledge. On closer inspection it was adding nest material to a partly built nest that they had constructed up against the algae-covered glass. How wonderful! I've never seen a long-tailed-tits' nest before and this one has a window on it. :)

In my main pic one of the birds is sitting on the wires outside looking confused at its nest through the window, poor thing. It soon remembered how to get in. In my extra another is busy working on the nest. It's amazing how elastic the structure is. I don't want to spook them but I hope to get some better pics. This is going to keep me enthralled for quite a while. :)

Today's poem is I Saw His Round Mouth's Crimson by Wilfred Owen. https://www.poeticous.com/wilfred-owen/i-saw-his-round-mouths-crimson

A poem about the horrors of the Great War by a poet famous for his war poetry. It is actually entitled Fragment: A Farewell, not as listed in my book above. The poet touchingly likens the death of a comrade to a sunset and night falling.