Birds

January. The festive period over and skies are grey. In search of a bit of nature, I started feeding the birds around the garden. What was surprising was just how quickly they cottoned on to the new food source in the neighbourhood. Within a day or two of the grease-balls appearing in the magnolia, the wintery garden had non-stop traffic of little hungry birds. So much so, that after the first week, my pack of ten bird food balls were all eaten. 

Intrigued, out came the bird book with full colour photos. Bilingual of course. In one afternoon, 14 different species came for a nibble. It’s a delightful way of passing a half an hour on a fairly grey Sunday afternoon. 

Step 2 was to try and catch them on camera. Not so easy as some of them, the chaffinches, the song thrush and the jay were very shy and the shutter noise frightened them away.

But the tits and my favourite, the common blackbird, seemed almost happy to pose. I’m sort of pleased with this first attempt at wildlife photography.