On a sunny January day like today the walk along the coast to Dunrobin Castle and beyond is our default choice but this morning's was marred by a growing concern about the small bird population, started by the discovery of the dead robin - see Monday's post - at....
...this junction. Places like this, where there is good cover but also human activity, seem to attract robins but today despite constant searching throughout the walk, we only had a glimpse of one. In fact, the list of small birds seen on this approximately 5km walk was....
....the robin, two blue tits,
....and two blackbirds. In addition we had fleeting sight of five unidentified birds, and heard but didn't see another blackbird, another robin, a wren and a chaffinch. It may be January, and many of the small birds may be in our back garden feasting on peanuts, but this is a worryingly low count, particularly on such a fine day.
I've been saying for some time that, if bird flu gets into the small bird population, we're unlikely to see their pathetic little corpses. The first thing we'll know about it is that their numbers will start falling. I pray that today wasn't the start of it.
On a sunny January day like today the walk along the coast to Dunrobin Castle and beyond is our default choice but this morning's was marred by a growing concern about the small bird population, started by the discovery of the dead robin - see Monday's post - at....
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