Single Image Post - The Goalkeeper

Far and Near - The Stonechat

Portrait shots are fine, but I also like to see the bird image showing some of its typical immediate environment.

It Happened Again - The Wrong Lens

Yes it happens to me occasionally. 

I decided to go out with a medium, rather than a long lens attached to my camera. Sure enough there were some Snipe out on the open fields and I could have taken some good images, had I brought my long lens with me. 

The only option open to me was to use a facility on my Olympus camera that allows you to X2 the distance closer to the subject on any lens you have fitted at the time. It works to a point, but the image is not of a great standard as you can observe from the images below.

So apologies for these pretty sub standard efforts.

Splash Two

Reed Bunting amongst the Seeds

Reed Buntings will certainly visit seed feeders at any time, but especially at this time of year. I have often photographed this species at feeders, but it is much better to shoot them in the natural environment. 

In Winter you can find them amongst tall vegetation where there is an abundance of seeds such as grass and dead flowers like Rosebay Willowherb.

Male

Female

Siskin

A small group of Siskin (mostly male) are the first I have seen this Winter.

These were high up in an Alder tree. Seeds being their main diet at this time.

Oh! Its only a Dunnock

Those words are spoken quite frequently amongst many Birdwatchers when they are out looking with great expectations of finding that something different, quite special or even rare and a Dunnock comes into view. This bird, even though we see it often, on close examination it has more intricate markings than many a species in the above categories.

Even in the song department, the male singing from a high perch in the springtime excels most of the more prominent calls of other species.

I was not aware until I looked it up, that its UK Conversation status is AMBER.