The starlings, I have just noticed, have returned. And in numbers too, which I suppose is hardly surprising. Six or seven of them can just now be seen in silhouette on a neighboring gable, picking at something on the tiles.

I hope it’s some kind of nasty moss. I hope they choke on it, the vile creatures.

This habit that starlings have, of descending, suddenly and in numbers, like a biker gang roaring into a quiet seaside village, scaring away all the nice blue tits and chaffinches who were happily coexisting around the feeder, prompts me to wonder whether we have a suitable collective noun for starlings, one that captures their malevolent and obnoxious essence.

We have a murder of crows, of course, and a collective noun that directly evokes a crime seems quite fitting for the peculiar odiousness of corvids.

However, the crime of which starlings can most fairly be accused is the admittedly lesser offence of stealing someone else’s lunch. A larceny of starlings? It’s not bad, but it isn’t quite right.

What is wanted is a collective noun that is charged with some of the presence of starlings, the surly and minatory quality which, along with unappealing spots, they share with schoolyard bullies.

I am going to suggest a belligerence of starlings. Just you see if it doesn’t catch on.

Gardenia jasminoides. 24 September. Peacefully, at home. Slightly missed by its owner, but not terribly, since it was a lot of trouble and could hardly ever be bothered to flower. Removal to compost heap after a brief ceremony.

No flowers, please.

Got a good look at a song thrush using my very modest new binocular.

It was doing the work of God and smashing a snail against the capstone of the garden wall.

This, according to the Collins Bird Guide, is the classic song thrush m.o..

At the kitchen window today, I was surprised by an entirely unfamiliar bird. It was hovering, albeit imperfectly, and darting now and then at its own reflection, something I have never seen any bird do in our garden.

It flitted obligingly to the patio, where I could get a better view through the french doors and reach stealthily for the Collins Bird Guide.

Given the colouring (a vivid, citric yellow breast, slightly greener and darker above), the body shape (slender, longish) and the behaviour (darting busily among the shoots of Rosa ‘Iceberg’ and picking off aphids), the most likely suspect seemed the willow warbler (Phylloscopus trochilus). The very distinct eye-stripe also seemed unmistakable.

The Guide confirms that the willow warbler is a common visitor in Britain and Ireland between April and September. My father concurs by text, and surmises that the nearby woods and river (the Dargle is about 2 km distant) could well attract it.

It was considerate of this wasp to arrive just as I was taking some close-ups of Lilium ‘Algarve’, which is announcing its presence this week.

I’ve had no luck so far with my amateurish attempts to identify the wasp.

I do not know what the day is, nor the hour. I know that darkness has settled upon us as might a cloak thrown over an armchair by a man returning after a long absence to his club, if it were not his best cloak and if the chair were not his favoured wingback armchair by the well-tended hearth. Ah, London–how I think of thee! How I see thee even now. But I am wavering in my duty.

Around me, the men are grumbling in their sleep. Whether the grumbling arises from their throats or from their famished bellies, I cannot say. What I know for certain is that nothing has passed our lips in six days but the fleas we have picked from the sleigh dogs. The odour of the now elderly banana permeates the camp, and it is all I can do to restrain my fellows from falling upon it and devouring it for what little sustenance it will give them. I have myself, God knows, endured moments of weakness, moments when my purpose has faltered.

But we must hold to our course. Three of our tomatoes have been lulled, I daresay, into a praeternatural ripeness. Three or four others, if I am not deceived, seem apt to follow them. All may not yet be lost.

We burned one of the dogs last night for warmth. He was lame, poor devil, but we had come to be fond of him. Rupert, we called him, for a chap at Harrow who was dear to me. He was most fearfully damp and difficult to ignite.

[The last sentence is stricken out. The following is added in another hand, and is unattributed.]

It was the dog what was damp. Not the poof from Harrow. He were a good dog and should of got a better name like Victor or Lord and I can say so now as it don’t matter. He better keep his hands on his tomatoes now is all or there will be trouble is all I am saying.

[The original hand resumes.]

May God forgive us.