Another bike ride yesterday, about which my first reaction is to say I didn't see very much. In fact there was a couple of bullfinches, a few buzzards and just past Irongray Church a flock of finches that I took to be chaffinches. But they seemed a bit more nervous than chaffinches normally are and I noticed that some had some white showing in the tail rather than the wing area, so I think that at least some of them may have been linnets.
And on the way back there were a couple of medium-sized brown birds that I didn't stop to investigate as I was riding with someone. Later the flick of a very white, short tail that probably belonged to a stonechat. Another white flash of rump was almost certainly a jay and I certainly heard a couple.
Even so, I find myself reflecting that I invariably see more when I'm out than I actually report. I don't for example note sparrows other than tree sparrows, any gulls (which I mostly dislike), blackbirds, crows or rooks. Chaffinches and the commonest tits generally don't get a mention but goldfinches and coal tits often do, even though they are often more plentiful. Wrens, robins and dunnocks don't score much either and neither do mallards, coots or moorhens. Jackdaws might get a mention if they're doing something interesting, as might an oystercatcher. A thrush almost certainly would but starlings would need to be part of a murmuration, while buzzards have a chance if no other birds of prey are around.
The assumption is broadly that some birds are so common that you will always see them. Or is it that you always used to see them, even though this is no longer the case?
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