I know, "What's a gowk?"

I miss my blackbirds. I haven't seen one in over a month.

This crazy thing they have where they go off to warmer climes and are replaced by other blackbirds from, um, colder climes does my head in. In particular, the gap between Departures and Arrivals is a painfully long one.

I became aware that they'd gone when the apple gowks I threw out for them every day started to pile up. Eventually they were harbouring so many wasps that I had to just turn them under the soil.

I've really missed the blackbirds' antics. The way they attack everything they eat as if expecting it to fight back. The noisy, excitable cry they have when they're disturbed and fly off into the bushes. The funny run, halt, run across the ground and the turning up of the tail as they settle on a branch.

But this morning I saw a shadow scuttle under the bushes. A distinctive shadow. Sure enough, out into the daylight came a young, or maybe a hen, blackbird..

I saved my first apple gowk tonight.