Attitude

As we were out and about in Warwickshire this morning, and it was TGIF day, R and I decided to go to Hiller's for lunch. As, it turned out, had most of the senior population of the county. R suggested I should try to get the bird hide bit of the visit out of the way while he stood in the queue for a table, and by the time he phoned to say we'd reached the top of the line I'd taken enough shots to be able to skip off to the restaurant untroubled by any notion of going back to the hide again afterwards.

I've moaned about it before, but that isn't going to stop me grumbling again now: every time I visit Hillers' bird hide, it seems as if they've thought up another way of making the experience just a bit worse than it used to be - not only for me, but more importantly, for the wildlife. Today's innovation was the installation of a gravelled track through the middle of the ground between the hide and the pond, which was previously covered with mulched bark. The bark wasn't wildly attractive, but it looked a lot more natural than gravel, and the rummaging birds such as blackbirds and other thrushes were used to digging through it for invertebrates. But no more. It seems that we're not allowed to have nice things.

Luckily there was quite a lot of activity at the pond, and I was happy to be able to watch this Blue Tit bathing, which it did with a kind of furious concentration by repeatedly face-planting in the water, then shaking itself off while glaring all around for potential threats. I adore Blue Tits, and I'm totally in agreement with Lev Parikian that we should make a lot more fuss of them than we tend to do. If this was a rare bird, imagine the number of people that would flock to see the exquisite creature, and the fuss that would be made on the socials about its gorgeous plumage and its delightful attitude. Familiarity really doesn't have to breed contempt.