(This entry just copied from my WAB blog)
Long-tailed Tit
Today I did some more bird watching in my parents’ garden, again trying to get some photographs with my new camera (I should say that I’ve been living back with my parents for about the last three years now – they keep muttering something about ‘eviction order’!). The day had started well when we had seen a Long-tailed Tit on the feeders right outside the patio windows as we had breakfast.
Chaffinch
About 11.45am, I got a plastic chair out of the summer-house, and sat beside the garden shed, about 40 feet from the feeders on the apple tree in the back garden. I had my camera set up on my tripod. I soon saw a Blue Tit inspecting the bird box nearby, and then Great Tits, Chaffinches, Greenfinches and a Dunnock put in appearances. Again I saw the Long-tailed Tit, on the feeders on the apple tree – unusual to see one on its own I thought, they are usually in family groups. Jackdaws and a Magpie flew overhead. A Robin also turned up, eating some of the food I’d spread on the low wall around the apple tree.
Greenfinch
I returned after lunch, about 1.45pm. Almost the first birds I saw were two Buzzards that soared across the paddocks behind the garden and then over our neighbour’s garden – I failed to get a decent photo, partly because I had to lift the camera and tripod together and point them at the sky. All the birds I’d seen earlier returned, and I managed to get some better shots of the Long-tailed Tit. A hen Pheasant turned up, but I was too slow to get a photo.
Dunnock