Here comes the flood

Well there you go, this week I allowed myself the luxury of a halfhour seawatch at the Haven. It's an annual event, just to prove to myself what a waste of time staring at the Solent is. We even went down at the prime time of three in the afternoon to give me the best chance of not seeing something and blow me down if a bloomin' shearwater didn't go by at a great rate of knots, blowing my theory clean out briney ocean. It displayed dull brown upperparts and dirty coloured underparts, pointing to it being a Balearic Shearwater. A handful of Arctic Terns also battled the foul weather conditions, who were then followed by a distant bundle of bar-tailed godwits. Chastened we returned home to the comfort of a cuppa and Lovejoy.

Activities have in the garden have continued apace, mainly negative in nature. With magpies, but mainly ####$&$&%% cats trashing any attempts at nesting. The blackbirds are now on their third nest, the woodpigeons are simply sitting around looking shell-shocked (to be honest they have that expression most of the time anyway), the wrens have gone along with the long-tailed tits and I've no idea what's happened to the dunnocks. Surely cat owners could be a little more sensitive to the needs of birds at this time of year.

On a positive note: the pond is still a wriggling tadpole soup, the spuds and the fruit trees are looking good, the blue and great tits are keeping their heads down and sometime soon we are going to be invaded by young starlings and house sparrows. Also, Rosie has put some feeders in our front garden postage stamp, these have attracted goldfinches in, so I've taken the chance to sketch them when they come in for a nosebag later in the day. This is great, but I'm now way out of touch with what's going in Emmerdale. Something about a vicar?

Come on Coventry City FC your time has come!