Remembering Winter

As I'm sure you're are all aware, there's been some changes on the site recently, firstly my Dad's section of the website is now underway as you can see from his bio and first galleries! I hope you enjoy looking at the new photographs from u both.

Now, back to the photo's... I was looking through some shots on my computer tonight and stumbled across some images from over the Christmas period and thought I'd share a couple of them with you. These photographs of male bullfinches were taken before our long, cold, snow covered period over winter...

I took them in my back garden on a beautiful cold day, although the snow had yet to arrive, there was a hoar frost covering the trees and berries. I'd noticed a couple of bullfinches in the garden in the days prior to these photographs, however, I didn't think much of it as they often appear from time to time when it's so cold!

When the weekend arrived I was able to have a look about during the daylight and saw a small flock of maybe 5-6 bullfinches at the bottom of my garden. I soon realised they were feeding on this rowan tree, however, it was not the fleshy berries they ate, it was the small seeds in the middle they were after, as they discarded the soft shell with ease. What isn't clear in these photographs is that they didn't have it all their own way...our very territorial resident mistle thrush saw to it that they couldn't linger in one place too long. I hope you like the photos... Fergus

It's amazing what a tree draws in...

I've put together a few photo's for you to see with a short story to go with them.

All of these photographs were taken on the same day, in the same tree in my back garden. It's truly amazing that one tree can draw in so many birds...we had every species of british thrush except for the ring ouzel visit at the same time! It was amazing being able to look into the tree and see over fifteen fieldfares, three mistle thrush, a song thrush, a redwing and a couple of blackbirds at the same time, aswell as a few bullfinch. It was a truly amazing sight.

Song Thrush

Redwing

Female Blackbird

Mistle Thrush

Fieldfare

Mistle Thrush glaring at a Fieldfare