Back to the birds.

Another great Sunday (if you ignore Utd's shocking home defeat by City). Spent a few hours with Andy Carey looking for Siskins and Redpoll at Woor Greens. Unfortunately with negative results.

I left the football with 20 minutes to go and went back out into the Forest. managed to get these shots at the Arboretum.

I was really pleased with this Nuthatch. A cropped shot of it shows the sun glinting in it's eye. The mark of a good photo i'm told.

I love the darkness of this shot which i have not changed.

Having had my fill of the birds at the Arboretum I went for a drive around the Clearwell and Newlands areas. I was driving along a quiet stretch of country road when i saw this Kestrel over the hedge. I couldn't believe my luck when it didn't fly off as soon as i opened the car door.

A closer shot using the 1.4x convertor showed why. The poor thing had a duff eye. Initially i thought i had caught it with the eye shut but other pics taken showed the eye was permanently shut.

I was a little disappointed that this shot wasn't a little sharper, but as i've said before it's a learning curve.

I also saw but couldn't photo a Buzzard being mobbed by two crows, Amazing to watch how despite it's best efforts it couldn't shake them off. I can only imagine that they had watched him take food and were trying to get him to cough it up, as i believe they do.