Alarm Clock Bird

MY BRAINS FEEL LIKE FRUIT SALAD this afternoon. I was awoken at maybe five o'clock this morning by a bird that had taken up position right beside my open window to do a fine impression of an alarm clock. Honestly I have never heard anything like this... and wrote out a long post about birds singing which will have to go in tomorrow when I've more time ...

What I did want to say today was about my links. The list grew by totally unstructured means, so there's no rhyme nor reason as to what seems to have ended up there. I am sorting them out. Having looked down who is and (more to the point) who is not there I was horrified at who I'd left out. And I apologize.

So just bear with me for a couple of days please and let me sort this out...

All this talk about cooking this week and finally I get to eat somebody else's. I'm off to Mother Hubbs's in a while for Sunday chicken dindins...

OK till tomorrow then ...

... except one question I'll leave with you. What bird could it have been that chirps so monotonously? Like it was saying "chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken-chicken" ...? This wasn't an alarm call like blackbirds' "don't-don't-don't" when the cat gets too near. The bird was many floors up and quite laid back about its "contribution" to the morning chorus. I thought it was perhaps a magpie... would I be right?

***

What was I thinking yesterday?

"Whoever they employed to plunk in the preset tunes was a mediocre nonEnglishspeaking person who had little feeling for the music and none at all for the lyrics ..."

That sounds terrible! Considering I spent about seven years of my life studying languages that I still do not speak to my satisfaction I come over like a right Brit monoglot. What I meant to say was something more like:

"Whoever they paid to plonk out the tunes was a mediocre musician with no feeling for the lyrics (which of course, we all sing along in our heads; or I know I do ...)"

Or something like that.

But what was that bird-???