Four corvid skulls, waiting to be put away in a little box.
The skulls had been part of a temporary exhibition to illustrate the functionality of differing beak shapes in various species of bird.
It was an absolute joy to get out the boxes of bird skulls again, and to have another little look through them as I was putting away the exhibited pieces. Something as simple as seeing the skull of a heron next to the skull of a wren, so fragile that it’s kept in a sealed glass tube, was just magical.
At the risk of sounding like a miserable old so-and-so, I am really not enjoying this heatwave! My Shed is like a sauna, and switching on the fan only serves to move the too-hot air around a bit.
I went outside to stand in a shady spot in the garden, and caught sight of these magpies on top of my neighbour’s conservatory. I couldn’t quite work out what they were doing, so I pulled out the zoom lens and had a look. It turned out that they were drinking the drips of water from a leaky overflow pipe. Clearly they’re not enjoying the heatwave very much either.
My plan for the rest of the afternoon? Refill the bird bath, and see whether anybody else needs a bit of a drink.
