The garden list......

.....stands at the grand total of......5.

I can hear lots and lots of birds - usually at the crack of dawn when I am trying to have a lie-in, but they are not very obvious. And they certainly don't appear to actually be in my garden.

The first bird for the list was Australian Pelican - flying over obviously. This was a pretty cool moment - I would never have dreamt that one day I would have a pelican on my garden list, nor that I would be living so close to a beach as to make that possible.

The second bird was a Welcome Swallow, also flying over, and the third a Silver Gull, also airborn.

There have been just two species that have felt the need to actually drop in. The first of these was one of my favourite birds, the Willie Wagtail. A lovely little black and white bird with white eyebrows, it wags its tail from side to side rather than up and down like the uk wagtails do. This reminds me everytime of the Renault Megan advert, and makes me want to start singing 'I see you baby, shaking that ass'. Of course I don't, that would be a bit embarassing....

But they are fiesty little things and full of character. They think nothing of seeing off other birds far bigger than them, and having a go at just about anything if they decide they don't like it.

The second bird to appear in the garden itself appeared this morning. I peeped through the blinds to see if there was anything left of the street after last night's storm, and there was a little Laughing Turtle Dove, scurrying away from the window in a very sheepish manner.

So, bird number 5. I think it is going to take me a long time to reach double figures at this rate!

Cheryl xx