We've been catching up with Winter Watch at lunchtimes. There's such a lot of interesting activity that happens during the coldest times yet as always, we don't get to see much of it. I felt determined to see whatever was on offer on our subsequent outings.
When C and I are out on our statutory daily walk I'm forever snapping away at things of interest with my camera. Usually with my 50mm prime lens but sometimes I throw caution to the wind and take out the zoom lens, albeit with the prime lens wedged in a pocket. It goes without saying that as soon as you pop on the zoom lens the light dwindles to nothing and there's not a bean to point it at but on Saturday, miraculously, we saw a lot of birds. Birds, which we don't often get to see that close, or stationary. It was a real treat both to see and to get some snaps of these fantastic creatures. Firstly, a kestrel. It clocked us, first looking over one shoulder, then the other.
Then taking flight before we got any closer. For such an elegant bird, this shot has made me squawk with laughter, it looks like a chicken in a lampshade.
Later on we saw another kestrel I suppose it could be the same one but moved on.
A corvid roost, and in flight.
I'm not far off being the world's worst at identifying birds, so naturally apologies if I completely fudge up throughout this post. My instinct was that this was a sparrow. Glad I checked because it's colouring looks nothing like the sparrow in my book. The closest was a dunnock and after a Google image search I'll settle on that.
Ah, mate, I feel the same. Fluffy and flumpy this winter. Lovely little (big) robin and several more too.
Some ducks were going round in circles overhead. If one was trying to shake the others off it wasn't working.
Pleasant pheasant.
And the final cherry on the top of an already well iced cake, a buzzard which didn't think I could see it. Look at those claws! We have a lot of buzzards in our area, which are easy to spot in the sky and we hear their cries. Occasionally we see them perched on trees or telegraph poles. They can tend to look unkempt but this one didn't seem too shabby.
A departing shot of the buzzard emptying itself before taking flight.
My final masterpiece, you're welcome.
An unheard of successful day of winter bird spotting.
Take care,
Sophie
