Windowgazing

Three times in the last four days I have seen an unknown bird hopping happily along my back fence. Like a grey robin, with just a hint of darker edges to the wings and reddish tail. Inspection of several bird books, the RSPB website, Google images etc have convinced me that she is a female Black Redstart, apparently not that unusual round here on migration, although they definitely breed much further north and winter much further south than Cornwall. I've carefully studied pictures of the male of the species in the hope that he too may be passing by my garden, but so far it would seem not. Just the one solitary female, but happy enough to stay a while with me.

Also happily bobbing along the fence the other day was a wren. Back and forth, then running along the horizontal rail, disappearing into the red jasmine, out the other side, back again... This is the first wren I've ever seen in my garden - there are lots in the coombe, but I'm surprised one has ventured three whole rows of houses uphill! That red jasmine would be an ideal place for a wren's nest or three - maybe in the spring...

I've been doing rather more birdgazing out of the kitchen window than usual over the last few days because I caught a cold. Actually Ron and I both started snuffling and sneezing more or less simultaneously last Wednesday evening and have generally gone downhill (and back up again) since then. Ironically enough, we were due for flu jabs on Saturday morning but were deemed too ill to have them, so will have to wait another month for the next flu jab clinic.

This is the first cold I've had for almost two years but of course it developed rapidly into a minor pulmonary crisis. A small salutary reminder of one's mortality every now and then isn't necessarily a bad thing; after a night where there were doubts as to whether the next breath was actually going to happen, a morning of wrens and redstarts, sparrows, starlings, even some sunshine, reinforces the fact that still being alive is, well, quite an achievement really.