Wobble

A bit of a wobble in the weather today, I think - just a splash of rain, and a bit breezier at times. Looking ahead, there seems a slightly milder prospect, but clearly there'll be a bit of rain about as well. Apart from going out this morning early to replenish the feeders, I've had no chance to check on our garden birds today, as I've been working in town, and people watching (plus a few feral pigeons and a magpie) instead. Yesterday, though, a magpie was doing me the service of clearing out my gutter (my brother usually does this for me)! We get a lot of moss growing on our roof, especially on the corner ridges, and it slips down into the gutters, which rather easily get blocked. The magpie was having a fair old time hoiking moss out of the gutter and flinging it around, presumably finding plenty of overwintering beasties in there as well. Magpies are experts at exploiting all kinds of possible food sources (eggs and nestlings included, of course, in the season); I remember some years ago visiting an old lady who told me a band of magpies had been uprooting and carrying away all the spring bulbs her gardener had planted in her rose bed, while she, not able to get up from her chair, could only look on in dismay.