In the 1960,s my wife and I were living in accomodation supplied by my then employer. Any decoration done to the property had its cost reimbursed after inspection by the employers agent. We had just finished decoration of one of the downstair reception rooms and were awaiting inspection, when lying asleep just before it was due, early morning, we awoke to hear a 'bong' ,'bong' sound. Realising it had come from downstairs we dashed down to find that a young starling had fallen down the chimney and the sound we had heard was its frantic attempts to get out of the closed window. There were sooty wing prints everywhere and the pile of soot in the hearth, trailed across the floor. I leave you to image the panic there was to clear the mess.
Your Forum
This forum has now been more or less replaced by the Club's Facebook page at 
The weblog below is for naturalists to use to report interesting sightings, ask questions, report on field meetings and generally post pictures and any information or questions generally relevant in some way to the wildlife and geology of Essex. You will need to register and be logged-on to post to the forum, and you need to upload pictures first, for use in posts. Find out more
The weblog below is for naturalists to use to report interesting sightings, ask questions, report on field meetings and generally post pictures and any information or questions generally relevant in some way to the wildlife and geology of Essex. You will need to register and be logged-on to post to the forum, and you need to upload pictures first, for use in posts. Find out more