Spugs.

I enjoy our House Sparrows. There is a small colony round-about the house and garden. If I put grain out in the open near the Buddlia they pour out and back from the cover of the bushes, always nervous, on the alert. On an occasion we watched the Sparrowhawk arrive, missing its chance it sat on the bench beside  and between the two Buddlia, and the House Spugs just retreated deeper into the cover of the dense branches. The hawk flew and the sparrows emerged and back to feeding. I sat by the other Buddlia, in the small walled garden and photographed House Sparrows in cover the other day. 

House Spugs in Buddlia.

Their other trick is to sit on our roof ridge from where they overlook both feeding places.

Don't poo on the solar panels, spugs.

There is again a male with a white, left, outer tail feather. There was a male like that here previously for at least four years. I've noticed this one fairly recently, presumably something in the local gene pool.

The sky was spectacular with snow on the Hoy hills so M and I headed to Warbeth beach.

The surfer.

Goldfinch numbers took a sudden boost with 17, three Woodpigeon appeared unexpectedly as well as a Skylark, a very few Redwing and a couple of Cormorant. The juvenile Mute Swan didn't understand ice and ended up struggling across The Shunan to get to open water.

Frosted Selfheal.

Harray kirk and graveyard.

A brief afternoon trip to The Links beach didn't yield much, managed a few shots of Rockit.

Rockit.

The welcome announcement of the Oxford vaccine approval will hopefully change the game for 2021. A year, I fear that will not be without its own challenges. And for the record, abstention on the vote was IMHO the correct thing to do, call yourself an opposition Kev (that's what he's called in this household)? Yes a "deal" was essential but something a lot worse than we had in the first place? And on the fishing question this is an interesting read, no one has sued them yet so I'm guessing it is all true - https://unearthed.greenpeace.org/2018/10/11/fishing-quota-uk-defra-michael-gove/?fbclid=IwAR0euE0zNm5Xe6Dkj_vwnPkbYKbXrgKqGODyJkk40dNniHhdbX41V_zEado

And on that happy wee rant I'll shut up for the year, probably.