This lunchtime a hen blackbird flew hard into the patio doors and knocked herself out. Beyond keeping the cat indoors, there wasn't much I could do for her other than leave her to recover.

After a while she got her head up and started to look somewhat dazedly around, at which point a cock bird joined her. He cavorted around her for a while, then started to make little headlong runs at her, pushing at her with his beak, whereon she would flutter a few feet and then settle back into her torpor. This went on for some time until she was at last able to fly away with him, or - possibly - from him.

I couldn't quite interpret this behaviour:

- Was he a concerned husband doing his best to rouse his wife sufficiently to get her away to a safe place?

- Was he a domestic bully smacking the missis until she got back to nest-building duties?

- Or was he a rampant male who, seeing an available female, needed to display all his fine masculinity, unable to accept that "Not now, I've got a headache" was in this case the literal truth?

Anyway, she has taken her splitting headache away from our patio doors, and I hope she finds time and peace to recover in safety.