There is a bird feeder hanging from the ceiling of the small veranda outside the living room, overlooking the garden. It’s a pretty little veranda, filld with plants, including some from my time in London which are doing far, far better now that they are no longer subject to my care. There are always birds on the bird feeder, mostly small finches and wrens (not that I can tell the difference, but they are small and not sparrows). This year a set of young woodpeckers have been coming regularly. One of them was quite a rare species but was found dead in the garden. During the worst of the heatwave they stopped coming and I thought maybe they had moved on to more adult diets, but once it cooled they have returned. But yesterday afternoon (before my nihari expedition), I was sitting and working in the living room when I looked up to see a very large bird perched in the veranda. I stared and stared at it, imprinting it into my memory, because it was clearly a raptor of some kind and that is unusual to say the least. It took flight and swooped right into the living room, made a quick, smooth, circuit over my head, and flew out again, to not be seen again. The small birds returned.
I looked it up at once on the RSPB website, and they only possible candidate appears to be a female sparrowhawk.
It was clearly a sign of something or the other. I daresay when the thing in question happens I’ll know what it was a sign of.