Male blackbird

Another desperately grey and cold day - one of those classic February 'non' days. However, the garden's full of birds, heaps of chaffinches and goldfinches on the sunflower seed, blue tits picking small insects off the greenhouse, and starlings, magpies and blackbirds on the fat balls.

At the moment there are at least three or four male blackbirds in the garden, and this is the brightest and boldest. They all tolerate each other's company - their desire for food over-rides their territorial behaviour. In another few weeks all this will change and there will be spectacular boundary disputes, where the males fly at each other in a flurry of furious feathers. Our garden is fairly large, and we usually have a number of nesting pairs, who seem to divide up their territories along definite features.

Although the weather wasn't very nice we still had to take the dogs out,so we went off to Ferry Meadows. Towards the end of our walk I heard the sweet ringing call of the waxwings, and spotted them in a poplar tree on the other side of the lake.We were just wondering whether to walk back and take a closer look, when they took off and flew towards us, landing in the top of a nearby poplar tree. We were able to watch them feeding and preening - surprisingly they seemed to be eating the young buds of the poplar. I thought that they exclusively ate berries, but as there are virtually none left in the area, I suppose they're having to eat anything vaguely nutritious. Anyway, the whole experience made my day!