I’m on the last leg of a 900-mile railway journey. I’ll soon forget most of it, but not the man I sat next to under the Channel Tunnel. He was in his seventies, twinkling with fun. We chatted for two hours. He had been a professional musician all his life. Somewhere near the Kent coast, he told me he’d had a hard time finding his way through the station to where he was sitting, as he could not see very much. He explained he’d lost most of his vision a few years back. He wasn’t ready for a white stick; he didn’t want to be perceived in that way. He had asked a lady which platform the London train was from, and she’d pointed to a sign that he could not see, he’d sensed a bit of unkindness in her.
We talked about his music. I had a look on YouTube; he was surprised to know that his songs were on there. I told him if he uploaded them himself, he might be able to get some income from them.
He was proud of the cousin who was going to meet him. With difficulty, he found a photo of him stood in front of his house. I had an hour between trains, so I asked him if he’d like to follow me through the station when we arrived. He said “no thanks, I’ll be fine.” He was a proud man.
We waited for the carriage to empty. I made to carry his bag, but he wanted to do it. I walked ahead; he paused at the door. I told him how many steps there were and that there was a big gap to the platform. He passed me his bag, and I held my arm out to him as he stepped down.
The platform was teeming with people, all going in the same direction. I didn’t really know what to expect myself, as it had been ten years since I used this station. I offered my arm, but he said “you walk in front, I’ll follow your feet.” Despite that, I felt a hand on my shoulder a few times.
On the escalator, I told him it was the kind that has steps, not a slope. At the bottom, I told him when it was time to start walking. He told me he had nothing to declare customs-wise.
As we reached the arrivals area, I recognised his cousin from the photo. A nice-looking man a little younger than me, he beamed at us, recognising what was afoot. We shook hands, all of us, and I left them to it.
The wagtails chose our logshed. It’s right outside our kitchen door and we’re in and out non-stop. They must have priced that in and decided it was worth it. Perhaps they were more confident than their peers, or at least more able to balance the risk versus reward.
There was a cold snap in the middle of May. The heating was off for the summer, so I went to get some wood for the stove. I saw the nest, set in the air gap between two stacks of logs, full of tiny eggs. We decided we could manage without the logs after all.
As I say, we are in and out all the time, so I popped my head into the shed every day or so to see how they were doing. I missed them hatching, but soon enough there were five balls of black fluff with enormous yellow beaks and beady eyes looking back at me.
The mum and dad visited their babies about once a minute on average. I could see them through the window. They seemed to work as a team: one sat on the ridge of next door’s house keeping watch, the other flew into the nest with a beakful of long-legged insects. They were cautious, constantly scanning for danger. I guess there’s a lot of that: cats, foxes, bigger birds, humans. I felt like we were the least of their worries. I hope so.
One of them took a liking to the roof bars of my car, so I parked it alongside the shed for them. That went down very well. It had a white stalactite of approval running down the window within a day.
The logshed is built with two compartments separated by wide-gapped slats. On around day 6 of their lives, I popped my GoPro through from the other side and left it running.
The mum and dad were back feeding within 10 minutes. When I reviewed the footage, I could tell when they were about to arrive because the audiogram showed a spike in volume. The chicks could hear or sense the imminent arrival of a parent and ramped up their noise. They also seemed to be electrified at that point, their beaks thrust into the air, gaping open, demanding. The adults fed one or two chicks on each visit. They seemed to remember whose turn it was.
I noticed an adult flying away with what looked like a white egg in its beak and thought nothing of it. As I watched more footage, it happened again and I saw that I was wrong. One of the babies was fed, then turned around 180 degrees and presented its bottom to the adult before excreting a white sack straight into the waiting beak of the grown-up. The adult took it and flew off. I had to watch and rewatch that, and then do some research, but evidently faecal sacks are a thing. It makes total sense. The nest would soon get infested with parasites and attract predators if the waste were allowed to accumulate. Apparently, the parents also regularly eat it themselves.
On the 16th day, I noticed them as I came back from walking my dogs and took a quick photo on my phone. They looked different, expectant in some way. Later on, my neighbour asked if they had fledged, as he had seen several baby wagtails in his garden. He took these photos. When I checked, they had all gone. I was surprised how much I missed them, I kept checking the empty nest when I walked past.
I thought that was our bird drama for the year. Then the blackbirds moved into the polytunnel.
There were five eggs this time, much bigger than the wagtails’.
I grabbed a quick film of them whilst the mum and dad were away, you can see there were 3 eggs still to hatch. I left the GoPro pointing down at them from the planting shelf above and captured one of the eggs hatching. The babies looked like little aliens or dinosaurs. Huge bulging eyes that stayed shut. Wrinkly, see through skin. No wings yet, just stumps. They were unable even to raise their heads
I caught another noteworthy bowel movement, again it was taken away immediately by a parent. It was pure egg yolk, which actually makes sense considering where the baby bird had just been.
You can see their diet is also very different to the wagtails. The mum and dad are feeding them chunks of worm flesh in this clip. They are more aggressive, you can see the adult pecking the baby to prompt it to open its beak before ramming the food in.
After 6 days, they were unrecognisable – clearly now young birds with long yellow beaks, feathers and wings. Eyes open now, looking for the next meal delivery.
I noticed one of the babies wasn’t raising it’s head up for feeding. It was smaller than the others. It disappeared overnight. By the end of the 7th day, I could only see 3 babies.
By the evening of the 8th day, only one remained. There were no feathers or signs of anything happening. The parents were still feeding the baby. We set up a trail cam to monitor overnight and caught this rather overweight ginger intruder. We think he must have been responsible.
We kept the polytunnel shut overnight after that, the adult birds could still slip in and out under the door.
As far as I know, the little one made it. I had to go away for the weekend but my neighbour kept an eye on him. He had flown onto the tomato plants overnight and was gone within an hour. We haven’t seen him since.
I won’t forget these two families. They were tiny, frantic, filthy, vulnerable and completely committed to the job of being alive. With so many dangers, predators and points of failure, I found myself deeply respecting them. Without doubt, they put 100% effort into their lives. I’m not sure I can always say the same.
If you expect people to listen to you when you speak, the very least you can do is give them the courtesy of good quality audio. There is nothing worse than being distracted by someone who sounds as if they are talking into a yoghurt pot. It’s hard enough as it is to hold people’s attention on a video call, and you definitely don’t want to be less interesting than their inbox.
With that in mind, I decided to upgrade my setup.
I looked at various options, including Bluetooth headsets and dedicated Microsoft Teams products, but after a fair bit of research, mostly on YouTube, the RØDE NT-USB Mini kept standing out. RØDE are a well-respected brand, and this particular mic is keenly priced for what it can do. I’ve embedded a short demo video below so you can judge for yourself, but to my ear it makes my voice sound a lot warmer, more natural and less thin than the alternatives I tried, especially my old Plantronics headset.
I’ve had my RØDE since June 2025, so this review is based on about a year of daily Teams use at the time of writing. I’ve also found that it works very nicely with Final Cut Pro, allowing me to record voiceovers directly onto the timeline of my project. I use it with a dedicated RØDE spring-mounted arm, which was totally worth getting. It elevates the whole experience. I’d say it’s now frictionless when it comes to answering a call, swinging it into position and folding it away tidily when not in use.
I genuinely enjoy using this mic. If you position it fairly close to your mouth, it makes you sound at your best. I definitely now find myself speaking more slowly and with far greater confidence.
The mic itself sits in a metal U-shaped mount. It comes with a detachable magnetic desk stand. The stand is well made and stable enough, but I didn’t really get on with it because it left the mic a bit too low for my setup. That is why I switched to the arm, which suits me much better.
On the front there is a rotary volume control that also lets you switch monitoring on, so you can hear your own voice through headphones without distracting delay. Once you’ve used that properly, it is hard to go back. It makes speaking on calls or recording voiceovers feel much more natural.
Round the back, you get a USB-C connection and a 3.5mm headphone socket. I paired mine with an old set of wired Sony noise-cancelling headphones and that has worked brilliantly. They feed my voice back into my ears for monitoring and also provide the audio for Teams and Zoom calls.
Setup is refreshingly straightforward. It is class-compliant, so on Mac and Windows it is basically plug and play, with no drivers needed. RØDE also says it works with computers or tablets, and can be used with mobile devices using the right adaptor or cable. I installed the software mainly to check for firmware updates, but for everyday use I have hardly needed it at all.
One practical point: this is not the most discreet option. I can usually keep it just out of shot on a video call, but people do sometimes notice it and comment on it. That does not bother me in the slightest, and it can actually be a useful ice-breaker, but if you want something almost invisible, a headset may still suit you better.
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