Gone quiet

Walked the usual loop and barely heard a thing. No warblers going at it from the brambles, no great tit doing its two-note thing from the top of the ash, just wood pigeons and the odd contact call from something I couldn't be bothered to chase down. This happens every year around now and I still fall for it every time — convince myself something's wrong before remembering that everything's just finished breeding and would rather not be noticed for a while.

It's the moult, mostly. Singing draws attention, attention gets you eaten, and once there are no more territories to defend or mates to attract there's not much reason to keep advertising yourself, especially while you're replacing flight feathers and would rather not be doing much flying. The whole hedgerow just goes underground for a few weeks.

Nothing to report is still worth recording, if only so next July I can look back and not panic quite so much when it happens again.