Today the rain is coming down in sheets but, regardless, I am still going OUT. I know that in this weather all the outdoor cafés will be closed, and I want to be outdoors, but luckily I’m prepared for this with a new toy: a thermos flask. Now, ok, this doesn’t exactly sound like the highlife, but in a world of shopping malls, virtual reality, apps and skinny lattes, sitting in one of the covered shelters on the seafront in the pouring rain with a thermos of tea has, in my opinion, become the new exotic.

And I’ve brought some stale bread to feed the birds…

Of course when I get to the sea front there are no birds anywhere to be seen, but just because you can’t see them, doesn’t mean that they haven’t spotted you. I find a shelter out of the wind, put the camera on the ground pointing in roughly the right direction, being careful to avoid drips and splashes, and then I toss the first few morsels onto the sodden pavement.

Within seconds the first bird turns up: I’m delighted to see it’s the crow, someone I haven’t seen for a while. Then a seagull lands, followed by a pigeon who walks nonchalantly but purposefully into view. I now throw quite a lot of bread out at once so every bird should get at least something.

Several more pigeons arrive and then, out of nowhere, a whole pack of seagulls. The crow quickly makes his exit; he’s already been lunged at, so now it’s just the pigeons and gulls. You’d think the gulls would have the advantage, being twice the size of any other bird here and certainly a lot more aggressive, but in fact the pigeons are getting a better deal because they are less nervous of human proximity. Also, the gulls are now fighting among themselves. One in particular, clearly the biggest and very territorial, is too nervous to get close enough to take what’s on offer, but instead of overcoming its fear, decides instead to attack any other bird that looks like its going to get something to eat. It’d go for the pigeons too but attacking them would also mean getting too close to me. This is clearly upsetting the seagull. The pigeons remain oblivious of this looming wave of spite but then, oh for god’s sake, one really big pigeon has seen all the others gathered here and decided, not to join in the free meal, but that this is an opportunity to have sex with a whole harem of potential playmates. This does not go down well with the rest of the pigeons and what I’m looking at now is beginning to resemble the decline of Rome.

Then, to cap it all, while all this attempted sex and fighting is going on a dog turns up and straightaway eats all the bread before its master calls it away.

I can only describe the following silence as loaded.

Once I’m home and have downloaded the photographs of today’s events, I too am a bit disappointed to find I’ve had the camera on the wrong settings and that most of the photos are pretty much unusable (apart from the one pictured, which needed a lot of rescuing). But, given I’ve just seen the rise and fall of any number of civilizations played out in front of me, re-enacted by birds and compressed into only about ten minutes, I’m not really complaining. The thermos flask worked pretty well too.