I know how you like a mystery photo, so what was this clinging to the first-floor window in front of my desk this week?
If I tell you it was most definitely alive, scrabbling away as it clung there, does that help? Or the fact that it then flew away?
Ok, photo number two:
Have you worked it out yet?
Here it was a litle while later, perched in the magnolia tree outside the window.
Yes, a Long-tailed Tit. Aren't they just the cutest thing?! Look at that little stub of a bill! Don't you just want to take it home?
So, mystery number 2: what was it doing attached to my window frame? And, even more astonishing, why has it - and its mate - been doing it every day this week, often several times a day? Scrabble scrabble; pick, pick, pick.
Well, in that second photo you can hopefully work it out. It has been collecting cobwebs. You can see some tangled strands where it has tugged then from one of the silk-wrapped egg bundles that spiders leave dotted around my window edges.
It is very possible that my Long-tailed Tits have been gorging on the spiders eggs within each case. But, if they have, it has been as well as collecting the web strands as nesting material.
"Nestbuilding? Now? In February?" I hear you cry.
Well, the amazing thing is that Long-tailed Tits take an extraordinarily long time to build their ultra-extraordinary nest - sometimes it can take over a month. And that's with the male and female both doing the construction. That's what it takes when you've got to build an entire dome of cobweb silk, feathers and adornments of lichen.
I've only photographed a nest once, and that was on the 11 March back in 2007 when I found one in a patch of Common Gorse in a local wood to me.
I get quite emotional thinking that two such tiny birds can work collaboratively to create something quite so exquisite. And woven using those tiny bills. Nature is so often the best artist.
They have to build to allow egg laying to begin by the end of March or beginning of April down here in the south, a little later further north.
And then it is 'all eggs in one basket' time, because they will have just one brood of chicks, one shot at success this year
The effort of looking after their brood can be so much that a pair of Long-tailed Tits will often take on the services of a sibling helper.
And the 'Ragamuffin' of the title? It's not just me making things up again - it's one of the many olde names they had in the past, including ones that describe that fabulous nest, such as Bottle Tit, Pudding Bag and Oven Bird.
I so hope they're nesting in my garden; I so hope to have news later in the spring that I'm a proud parent. And my windows are staying totally unwashed, for which I feel I have a very good excuse!
Me too Russell, love seeing the little spider nests and always leave them well alone :) Wonderful blog, as always Adrian, I do so love a long tailed tit too, absolutely adorable and their nests are a work of art aren't they - as you quite rightly say, nothing can rival nature in its artistry.
I clean my own windows, and always try to leave the spiders' nests in situ on the top of each frame.