Nobody's home

Once again while we were walking I found something else that I find fascinating - an empty nest. This is very tiny, though you can't tell that from this photograph. And at the moment it is filled with dead leaves from the small wild apple tree in which it's been built.

Will it have residents again before too long?

I'm not sure.

I know that robins will recycle a nest from a previous year. In fact I had several nests or partial nests on a couple of the beams in the drive shed on year. You could tell it was a robin's nest from the size, and the amount of unlikely things that went into its making - string, a long thread from a woven plastic sheet that I'd used under a pile of sand as a tarp one year, grass, twigs, feathers...mostly grass but decorated with lots of other colourful and interesting things. One of them eventually became the prime nest.

There is an expert birder who came to visit and looked at all the nests some of them completed and some only partly done. H shook his head and laughed and said they could be diversionary, or that the robin changed its mind and didn't like the spot where several unfinished ones were located, or maybe it forgot which one it was building. All seemed like plausible answers to me.

But sometimes I happen on these little guys - the tiny ones... there's one in one of my three apple trees at the moment. I always wonder if it will have inhabitants again. So this year, I'm making notes. If I find activity. I'll let you know. Fun to think about - more baby birds. There's certainly been a lot of males squaring off and deciding which territory they want, or seed or spot on a branch. Spring is definitely in the air.

And there is a robin - whose song first thing in the morning, when I put the feeders back out side, just lifts my heart. It sings so loudly. I'm assuming it's trying to attract a mate. And its song is so varied and cheerful. I'm crossing my fingers for him.

And for you too that you have something to sing about today.