After I returned from my morning walk today, bird activity in my garden had altered. The continual singing and chirping had stopped and the blackbirds were no longer gathering insects for their newly born.

I am guessing that the magpies have stolen the baby birds to feed their newly born babies.

The male blackbird is still singing and he is chasing another male blackbird off his territory more aggressively than he had been previously.

Yes ducks can do a lot of damage in a garden, but thankfully in mine they were only eating grass and the weeds that we were intending to deal with this bank holiday weekend.

I think the ducks may have left… there was a bit of a showdown with a couple of magpies mid morning.

This evening the magpies decided to harass the blackbirds that are nesting in the corner of my garden. Magpies are predators and not unknown to steal eggs from nests. The small birds get agitated and send out their shrill alarm signals when magpies are present. Mr C shooed the magpies out of the tree.

Calm and sweet singing returned to the garden.