Garden notes.

Another grim day of weather with heavy rain at dawn, this relented for a while, then returned again late afternoon along with poor light due to full cloud cover.
Once again, birding today was confined to my garden and surrounds where Blackbirds featured most of the day.
Early morning saw several Siskins being very flighty and noisy, I suspect the pair seen frequently through spring have successfully bred locally in a nearby garden, a great record.
A beautiful juvenile Blackbird was seen, a bird from a first brood of the year, with lovely markings, the head and upperparts were mottled orange/buff, the secondaries were tipped orange/buff, the breast had a buff tone, and the belly appeared quite barred, even scaly looking.  The primaries and tail were unmarked brown.
Our Collared Dove pair are still sitting tight on the nest in my hedge, and I was lucky enough to catch the changeover duties between the male and female birds.
A few Swifts were seen overhead.  There appeared to be no other bird movements when checked.