Monday 25 February 2013

Birds

Lots of photos in some glorious sunshine this morning. But Monday is a very busy day for me, and I won't have time to edit them till later on in the week.
But I have a few from the garden  - some we don't often see.
First up is a female blackcap, and with a sparrow. We've seen the male quite a bit, but this is the first time I've seen the hen.




Wow - some change in colour cast over the days - although also the first photo was taken through the window, and the second from outside. We don't often see long-tailed tits on the feeders. They're so comical with their tiny little bodies and stubby heads and those long tails. I've been seeing a lot of them round the place recently, and they always make me smile.



A siskin - female, I think. It's only the second time I've seen one ever. The first time was rather fraught on two counts; it was when my mother was dying, and we'd gone over to my sister for the afternoon for some time out and a break from the hospital, and one of her cats caught a siskin so she went tearing out to scare the cat before he damaged the bird. I'm pretty sure the bottom photo, with the goldfinches, is a siskin too, but I'm going to check that with my sister.




Not at home, although we have two hen and one male blackbird who are now regular visitors and fly in every time they hear me whistle for the robin. It's getting a bit like trying to feed two dogs who want to eat from each others bowls!! This one was in a tree along the canal bank. I enjoyed waching him while I waited at the level crossing for the barriers to go up.


And finally, this  is one from this morning. I often see a couple of grey wagtails flitting across the Liffey - usually I hear them first and know to look for the flash of yellow. This morning there were five of them, and instead of flying further and further away, a couple of them actually flew closer, and one landed on the wall quite near me.


We have at last had some welcome sunshine - not done with the grey weather yet and it's still bitterly cold in the wind, but oh, blue skies are a tonic!

No comments: