Birds and Itchy Arms

I'd hoped to have video of the fox eating the boiled egg I left out, but it didn't come by again last night. I suppose I ought to throw that egg out. After sitting out more than two nights, and expired to boot, it might not do any favors even for the fox.

While digging around in the garden shed the other day, I came across the bird feeder above. We used to have it hanging in the center of the garden but as I recall it attracted too many pigeons, so we consigned it to disuse. Well, I decided to try it out again, so I put some seed in it and hung it from the mock orange in the shady back of the garden, and it has proved a major hit with the tits. I see little blue tits (above) on it...

...as well as coal tits and great tits. The tits are manic, fussy eaters, discarding certain kinds of seeds to hone in on the ones they prefer. The pigeons, meanwhile, seem content to patrol the ground below for the tits' discards.

It amazes me how fast those tits can empty that feeder. For such tiny birds, they can plow through seed like nobody's business. I thought squirrels or even rats were to blame, but I've seen no sign of rodent activity at all. I think it's just those little birds.

Steve Reed · Starlings

Yesterday afternoon, as I sat out on the bench reading, I was amused by the sounds of the starlings in the trees over my head. I love their whooping, rattling, chirping sounds. It's like they're so happy they just can't contain themselves.

Some readers asked yesterday about our new upstairs neighbors. I gotta say, there's not much to tell so far. There's a man, his wife (who I have not yet met) and two boys, young teenagers I'd guess. They're from Israel, they seem like very nice people and we hear them much less than we used to hear the Russians. There is no construction, no banging, no noise beyond normal snippets of day-to-day conversation. It's such a welcome change! The dad even gave me a nice bottle of wine as a thank-you for helping him manage the stacks of cardboard boxes that came from their move. Might they actually be normal people?! That would be a nice change.

I have the weirdest medical problem. Several days ago, I began getting itchy areas on my forearms. There were no marks to speak of beyond a generalized redness, which I assumed came from sun exposure. Well, this itchiness has spread all over the top surface of both my forearms. It is intense as heck and the only thing that relieves it is running my arms under cold water. Hydrocortisone does not help. I haven't tried an antihistamine yet but that's in my plans. There are some almost invisible raised bumps or nodules but they don't seem like insect bites or anything like that. They seem more like hives. Generally speaking, aside from slight redness, my arms look perfectly normal.

I haven't changed anything like diet or soap and I haven't been out in the sun any more than usual in recent days. But I suppose I have been in the sun quite a bit this summer, overall, and I rarely use sunscreen in the UK. So this could be a reaction to cumulative sun exposure over the course of the season. I'm wondering if I have this, although as far as I know my cervical spine is perfectly healthy. It could also just be this, I suppose. All I know is, it's driving me crazy to the point where it's been hard to sleep. Sunblock from now on!