When birds saved my life
The amazing sight of 100+ Goldfinches, just outside the window This is something I wrote on my first 'blog' Birds in a Cheshire Garden. Though back then - twenty years ago - blogs were still a twinkle in the internet's eye. I spent ten chairbound years looking out of a window onto a garden and a its birds. I was seldom down or bored - because of the birds. They kept me going. Finch Charming I can still remember the first Goldfinch I ever saw . A roadside of thistles glimpsed from the car held two excitingly unfamiliar birds. The sparks of colour brought a touch of the exotic to that urban scene. I knew I'd seen something like it in my Observers Book of Birds. Then came a flash of recognition as I mentally matched the painting of a Goldfinch with the finch-of-paradise I'd just seen It's funny how birds seemed more brightly coloured when I was a boy. Even so, many Goldfinches later, I still get a frisson of pleasure every time I see that combination of red, bla