Thank you for your interesting comment but..... where are the birds? I just don't see or hear them?

There are definitely less around here than there used to be.

The old chestnut "There's lots of berries, a sign of a hard Winter to come" is really a sign of a favourable season?

There's not the number of sparrows than there used to be and even Blackbirds and Robins are not to be seen in any numbers, just the odd one or two now and again instead of many per day.

The Swallows arrived and raised four but although I've seen a couple of Swifts, there's not been the numbers flying around making that "scree-scree" sound when they're flying around in a group. House Martins? Ain't seen any.

I've been watching Coot and Moorhens, they seem to have done quite well. A pair of Coot had nine and raised seven of them. The Moorhens skulk around so much, I dunno which pair raised how many and would you believe a pair have just nested and today I saw them with one tiny ball of fluff, it's head was barely above the water. It was smaller than most of the leaves floating on the water. I don't know if there were any more in the Bulrushes but they had more than one egg! Will it survive the Autumn and more particularly the Heron?