More birds added to my list!

Jings! I really did have to go and lie down yesterday - the excitement was too much. Thank you so much everyone who popped in on my blipday, and to the many who left little presies. I was very very chuffed. And to be in the top row of the Spotlight with TWO pics is a first (for me).

JR probably saved me from myself yesterday. If I'd blipped an SP in a swimming hat and googles, and possibly purple wellies, I might have had to hide for days. Not that I bump into many any blippers anyway, but there are friends and relatives who check in on my blips and they might have thought I'd lost my marbles...

Off to my bird watching group this morning. Another city park and hill with lovely views that I've never been to before. I got a very good shot of a great spotted woodpecker, in profile, banging away at a tree trunk. And a superb shot of a female kestrel sitting facing us on a branch. Only trouble is, I saw them through my binoculars. Now, if only I had a really big zoom lens...

There were two pairs of woodpeckers, hammering away and flying round and round, chasing each other. They flew through the trees following the pathway and so flew directly over us several times. They have a very distinctive flight - they fold their wings in and bomb along for seconds in a sort of up and down zig zag.

These were the sounds I identified today- a pair of great spotted woodpeckers hammering out their mating calls, a common or garden robin singing his territory song, a great crested lorry with its backing up alarm call, a common yellow-backed pneumatic drill's mating call and a lesser spotted - no, I lie - it was a lesser checked (I often get them mixed up) golfer teeing off. (There was a building site at the bottom of the hill on one side, and a golf course on the other).

We didn't, as a group, go to the pond, but a couple of us wandered round there at the end. But Juliet, our leader, was right, there wasn't much going on. A few swans, coots, moorhens and tufted ducks and they weren't very near. So no birdie blip, I'm afraid. But I did get a very good tip about something I want to see and I MUST go this week. Hopefully get a photo.

There are not many things that will get me out and about in town of an evening these days, but a free film is one of them. The Times had a freebie on this week, so I booked it. No idea what the film was, didn't read the guff, but a 50/50 chance it might be good. Rushed a quick tea, into town to the cinema, a wee bit late. The boy (aged about 15) at the counter examined my printed out confirmation. He pressed a few buttons on his screen and looked puzzled. He went to his friend (also aged about 15) and they conferred and both came back, puzzled.

'Have you not done a few of these already this evening?' I asked, helpfully, as there must already be a few hundred folk awaiting the start in about five minutes.

Then it dawned on us and them at the same time... er ... Which evening are we talking about? The date on the ticket was for next week.

Hmmm. Haven't got the date and/or venue wrong in a long time. Although it's not unknown.

Must just check the Barcelona dates...