Birds in the Rain

It has poured with rain for two whole days, although it has now stopped and a watery sun has come out. Yesterday we had planned to go round looking at the entries for the garden competition, and we did, but it get wetter and wetter as the day went on. It's always interesting to look at other people's gardens, but these were something else. One thing I noticed was that for the first time every single one had bird feeders of some description somewhere. In one particular garden a robin sat on the fence and scolded us until we moved far enough away from the bird table for him to feel safe to eat - only about three feet away.

This morning I managed to grab an hour of just slight drizzle to take the dog down to the creek. The tide was out and there were three egrets scuffling away happily in the mud. Just as I was thinking to myself how unusual it was to see more than one - they are quite aggressive and territorial as a general rule - and reminding myself that actually this time of year it does happen once or twice as the young ones leave the nest, one of them noticed that his space was being invaded and set about one of his competitors, squawking loudly and raucously and harassing the poor bird until it moved away. Not all that far, not out of the creek, but far enough...

There was a new bird on my garden bird feeder this afternoon - a juvenile starling. I'm not sure where it came from as we rarely see starlings round here, but it came in for a speculative taste of the soggy bread.