Wild Birds.

Hello again! Back home and camera charged finally. I’ve been so excited about the photos that were stored on it when the battery went flat. I’ve uploaded and enhanced some of the better ones to get a better look at the wonderfully coloured wild birds we encountered in Sherwood.

At the beginning of the week the Robins were quite elusive and it was terribly difficult to get a still photo of one until we found the bird hides. This little fella was quite the poser.

These colourful birds are Chaffinches and were also quite shy around the camera, but were plentiful in number and I couldn’t help but include this photo which I believe shows a male and a female.

These I think are Great Tits larger than the Blue Tit so quite easily distinguishable. These three in particular seemed to stick quite closely together which made for a lovely photo.

I admit that whilst at Sherwood Forest I fell in love with the Blue Tits, this little one here took a superb photo and I was over the moon at how well it came out, you can see the ring on its leg where it has been logged. Though quite small they seemed less shy than the Chaffinches and actually perched on the window frame of the hide.

There was another hide nearby and I couldn’t help but have a look. This second hide was set further from the main one and was much quieter. We had been twice to this hide but on the second visit I was in for a treat. Almost straight away we saw a Jay. Something which I’d never seen before and so didn’t know quite what it was (ashamedly I said to the bf “look a woodpecker”) I later looked it up and saw it was a Jay.

Incidently a Woodpecker did actually turn up! (Note: I did think the Jay was some kind of lesser woodpecker, because the next photo clearly shows the real thing)

He didn’t actually do any wood-pecking just ate a lot of bird feed, but he did manoeuvre excellently around the feeding post and he did stay for quite a while. Another little bird at the hide which I fell in love with was the tiny Linnets. Adorned with beautifully red/pink plumage the males were gratuitous with their posing and I was able to get some great photos.

In fact the Linnets were particularly sociable and claimed a feeder all for themselves which, in my opinion, made for my best photo. . .

I particularly like the fact that the entire feeder is full and each birds attention is fixed somewhere else as if they’ve all heard something all at the same time. Which is a possibility, tree falls of snow kept disturbing the little mites, they might have been watching their heads.
I couldn’t believe how lucky we were to see such a variety of wild birds. It was so nice to see. It is the most important time to feed wild birds of course. Winter time must be especially difficult for them, they need to eat a third of their body weight in winter just to be able to stay warm.

This little Long-Tailed Tit was making sure he got his share, I thought he was going to climb right in!
I left feeling a complete admiration for these little birds, who slog it out through the winter and still seem so full of determination and life. It really is wonderful winter viewing.
So please feel free to comment on my twitching, and do point out any mistakes in classification, I now know a Jay is not a Woodpecker . . .oops 🙂