Chillax!

Taking it easy in the spring sunshine, Dunnock style...

It's going a bit quiet now...

It's been a quite week for me, with night shift curtailing any real birding opportunities. Thankfully (?) the drift migrants are starting to dry up, with only a single male red-backed shrike being of note in Northumberland... so nothing too good missed. The quail did not linger at West Hartford.

This afternoon the garden has been a hive of activity, with the female blackbird clearly having to tend to a second brood, while the family of dunnock are fledged and being fed in the shade of the garden border...

Hopefully I'll get out over the weekend.

Oh dear, a non-birding weekend!

Despite really nice weather (blue skies and relatively mild), I never got out at all! The garden is becoming a hive of activity – one poor female dunnock is being chased relentlessly by two males, and I hope to photograph some of the display (wing flicking etc) over the next few days – but they’re fast!


The drive home from work on Friday morning was enlightened by a fly-over woodcock, and lesser black backed gull have started to reappear after their winter break from the region.

Saturday was spent (partially) at the cinema - Alice in Wonderland in 3D - Great!

Sunday saw the tick-mobile get a well deserved wash - it was hacky... salted roads are no good for a dark coloured car. Even the inside had a clean out. It really was that birdless a weekend!

A week of early shift beckons… maybe I’ll get out this week sometime?

Garden Accentor

Back on early shift this week, but given the time of year there is not too much time to get out birding mid-week. So here is a stop-gap image. I fear I'll resort to editing old holiday images soon!

This dunnock was photographed as dusk descended on my unkempt garden (15:27 to be exact!) at ISO 1000, 1/500th sec manual, fill flash at -1.

Three of this subtle species are visiting the garden feeders at the moment.