Chiffchaff

Well, of course this is no chiffchaff - too brown, too thick-billed, too big, too chunky, too cheepy, too fluffy. The third in the series featuring the inhabitants of our neighbour's roof space: a female house sparrow, a study in brown. It looks like there are several pairs building nests in there. The neglect of their roof is good news for our colony of house sparrows, as is the ivy swamped fragment of blackthorn hedge outside our drive, and the massive rambling roses in our garden that afford them some protection from the stealthy sparrowhawk forays.

This once abundant and ubiquitous British bird, successfully introduced to so many other places in blipland, is now a red-listed species of high conservation concern, having declined massively in both rural and urban situations. Michael McCarthy's beautifully written book "The Moth Snowstorm, Nature and Joy" describes the demise of house sparrows in London and his quest to find one of the last remaining colonies.

Our house sparrows are a daily source of joy for me, almost always the first birds to greet us as Gus and I step outside every morning. If and when the neighbours renovate their roof, the sparrow boxes will be going up. I won't accept losing them.

And speaking of joy, at lunchtime as Gus and I headed home through the woods, there was a faint, repetitive song - the first chiffchaff of the Spring singing from the flowering sallows where, between bursts of song, he can feed on the insects attracted by the pollen and nectar.

Later I went for a tea bag treatment, it was an appointment booked several weeks ago, but timely today to help my back which I somehow injured when in the garden on Friday. The needlework magic worked, it's better than it was before puncturing. still not completely fixed though.