January
Back again after a winter break in Kingsfold ward at East Surrey Hospital. The team there were brilliant - Florence Nightingale would be proud! Back to bird business - 10 days into the new year and I have had 20 species of birds into the garden: blackbirds, song thrush, robin, dunnock, great, blue and long tailed tits, nuthatch, chaffinches, goldfinches, wren, great spotted woodpecker, ring necked parakeet and lots of house sparrows. One of the house sparrows is a leucistic bird - which means it lacks pigment in its feathers, some of which remain white. A very strange-looking bird but not as white as the bird photographed (see photo) at the Lost Gardens of Heligan which was almost all white.
Brian Hobley