Saturday 16 January 2010

Black-throated Thrush



It was an early start today as there was the important business of securing a uk-tick ~ a black-throated thrush has conveniently been feeding in a small garden in Newholm, a village just west of Whitby, North Yorkshire. The pager service confirmed that the bird was there as we passed Scaling Dam, and it was with some relief that the bird was feeding in the well stocked garden upon our arrival.



Pity the weather was so bad - it was very overcast and raining heavily. This mean't that light was very poor for photography, so high ISO had to be utilised (1250!) as flash was not really an option.



The results were pleasing, perhaps enhanced by the confiding nature of the bird. Having fed at the "house end" of the garden (approx 12 meters away, the image with the thrush facing left on top of feed and snow depicts this position), the thrush suprised us all (the massive <20 crowd...!) by flying down to "our" end of the garden and proceeded to feed on suet / apples kindly placed out by the home owner.

Fantastic!

I managed a couple of images at ISO640, which helped reduce noise, but all in all the camera, albeit wet, performed really well.



One of the residents came out and offered us all cups of tea, which was very kind. Hopefully birders present will continue to behave and make the correct impression to this community.



If you are heading up/down to see this bird, please give generously to the RNLI collection!

4 comments:

Ghost of Stringer said...

Love them BT Thrushes, great birds ! You got some good pics too... I was lucky enough to find one in 1997, this bird looks very similar.

.... My best ever BT Thrush memory was opening my curtains one morning to see a flock of them feeding on the grass just outside the window alongside a couple of black throated accentors !! Mindblowing !! .....Not in Northumberland of course !!

Can we have a Dusky next please !!

Birding about Northumberland said...

Stunning bird, lovely photo's
Michelle

John Malloy said...

Thanks for the comments - it's a cracking bird and I was glad to finaly catch up with one! Pity it was so cold and wet!

Blyth Birder said...

Cracking bird BS, it showed really well today in much better weather/light conditions than yesterday.

I couldn't get decent shots of it though, always seemed to be a twig or grass in the way.

Great bird all the same.