Birds in a frenzy

It is a wet Sunday morning.

Our small local population of starlings (a species in decline in the UK) is on a mission. They repeatedly come into the garden looking for food.

They seem to eat the first few mouthfuls themselves and then they arrange the food in their beaks. Swiftly they fly away and, a few minutes later, they return for another beak-full.

Their nests and their babies are somewhere near and they cannot allow the cold wet weather to slow them down; there are hungry mouths to be fed.

Damp from the rain but busy gathering food for its chicks

Elsewhere a far different bird works equally diligently but very differently to find food. Does it have chicks to feed too? Almost certainly!

A grey heron stalks fish in the canal.