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You never imagine your holidays in the rain do you? But when I woke up at 4am local time it was raining hard.  Still a Northern Mockingbird sang outside – I didn’t feel mocked at all. As well as the birds being different – or some of them anyway – we’ll come back to that…

I spent yesterday evening with a bunch of nature conservationists in Washington Zoo. And then we sat outside in the warm evening air, had a beer or two and talked about nature conservation and about birds. Not so different from Home really. In fact the topics were very similar – do we do nature conservation…

I got here and the first bird I saw was … a starling. Yep a small flock feeding on some grass in central Washington. But I am glad to see there is still a Northern Mockingbird in the street outside the Tabard Inn where I am staying.

It’s late spring here in east Northants.  It’s over a month since I saw my first sand martins, chiffchaffs, blackcaps and willow warblers.  I’ve seen, locally, a good list of spring-bringers – those mentioned already and garden warbler, sedge warbler, reed warbler, grasshopper warbler, whitethroat, lesser whitethroat, cuckoo, nightingale, yellow wagtail, swallow, house martin, common…