Spring has been and, it seems, has gone again. Aberdeen was engulfed yesterday briefly in freezing rain, fine snow and hail. It's cold. The nesting birds, the outside ones, are busy in spite of the weather while the inside one, Chicken, is fully occupied. As I write, she's at my feet under the table in her nest of  torn-up newspaper and sundry scraps of kitchen paper and general findings. I make limited attempts to maintain hygiene but she resists my efforts and runs at the broom or snaps at me if I try to clean up crumbs and food.  She' s nesting a little later than she did last year but as yet, there are no eggs. She wanders around with a beakful of paper which she moves from one side of her nest to the other, making uncharacteristic squeaking noises. 

Zik's in good voice this morning. I haven't noticed any difference in his behaviour this spring, apart from his growing confidence and increasing desire to give forth of his opinion. He is, at the moment, standing on top of his house eating a scrap of mince and growling quietly. In the past couple of weeks, he has unravelled the fiercely complicated, knotted parrot toy made of strands of fine string I bought him ages ago, of which he was terrified. He likes to dump the unravelled portions in his water dish. I have replaced it with an even more complicated, even more bird-defying parrot toy made of tight knots of fabric, brilliantly coloured. He's not the least afraid of it although he hasn't yet begun to tackle its intricacies. It won't, I imagine, take him long to destroy it when he does. 

The doves have been out a few times recently although their reluctance to go out is matched only by mine to let them out. The hawk lurks speculatively in the tree or in the flower-bed, flying away low and fast when I go into the garden. I  wonder why I don't find the remains of  the abundant population of wood-pigeons anywhere-perhaps hawks are wary of tackling birds of such considerable girth.

 Last week at work, I had a long chat with the retired gamekeeper from Deeside with whom I have discussed the matter of magpies. We talked about the fact that hawks have an apparent preference for white doves (probably because of ease of visibility) and about the reasons for the growth in raptor numbers but alas, we came to no amicable agreement on  the qualities of pica pica.