Birds have little fear of humans

I WAS sitting on the terrace of a hotel enjoying some autumn sunshine when a bird walked over my foot. It was a bit startling. A family of pied wagtails were busily working the terrace searching for whatever it is pied wagtails regard as food.

What this is has been a bit of a mystery to me because they seem to prefer foraging on open paved surfaces where you’d imagine there would be little that was nourishing.

Anyway, they paid no attention to all the people drinking coffee and pints and eating sandwiches. They just kept darting around with that peculiar mincing gait, half walk half run, that wagtails have. And one of them walked over my foot.