Thursday 21st March

I haven't managed any trips out over the past week but things have started to happen in the garden.

Almost as soon as I had finished writing the last post, and was regretting the lack of interesting visits to the niger seed feeder, a couple of siskins visited it and spent a prolonged period feeding away in a delicate manner.  There was one male and one female and this performance has been repeated a couple of times since.  It seems likely they are a pair.

Definitely a pair are the two magpies that are repeatedly rummaging through the prickly bush in the corner of my neighbour's garden.  As they regularly bring twigs, I assume they are nesting but so far there isn't a visible result and they've been doing it for about ten days.  I put a few sticks out on the patio table and some of them duly disappeared.

Today was warm enough to read a book in the summer house and, between snoozes I caught sight of the first butterflies I have spotted this year - probably red admirals - and a female woodpecker briefly visited the peanut feeder, the first to be seen for many a long month.