Well it’s been quite a day in the garden for birds. Firstly I set myself up to try and capture a half decent image of the Blackcap warbler male. I had caught sight of him yesterday and I had hatched a plan to succeed, read all about this here, there is far too much information and I don’t want it to detract from this Long-tailed Tit encounter!  So……. there I am at around 10, in my shed at the end of the garden and as I have explained it is set up with camouflage netting over the doorway, to all intents and purposes it is a very good and successful hide. I have the camera focused, adjusted and pointed on the apple tree and specifically the last remaining half eaten fruit where I am expecting to see the Blackcaps. it’s a little quiet and I turn to sit, in that instant I realize that there is a bird on the feeder positioned just a feet from me. I quickly trained my camera on to it and to my astonishment it was a Long-tailed Tit. Now these are not rare whatsoever in England and we have them in the garden most winters, if not every winter, but not last year strangely, for the last 23 years. I had been looking forward to a visit from them, and now Murphy was playing a part and I was not ready for the event. I tried quickly to focus the camera manually and adjust other settings but it was only a momentary visit and he/she had grabbed a sunflower heart and left the scene of the crime before I could get a mug shot!! It was there long enough for me to grab a few photos which just showed legs and tails but I did note that the bird was sporting a big shiny BTO (British Trust for Ornithology) ring. The day proceeded and I managed good photos and views of the Blackcaps that you can read about as above. At around 3.30 after a particularly entertaining FA Cup Football match on the box I went up to the bathroom to see if there was anything about and in the apple tree. As if by magic there appeared a flock of Long-tailed, first 2 or 3 and then more and more until the garden was alive and buzzing with them. They are so active and lively that it was a real thrill and spectacle. First they were amongst the remains of the clematis and finding aphids, all the time calling incessantly to keep contact, then they would flit across the garden and eventually on to the feeders. I tried really hard in the fading light to capture a good image, not easy with such a fast moving and almost twitching bird so inspite of about 70 photos I only ended up with 3 or 4 that were almost OK. Just one individual, and then after a few moments, another landed on the nearest feeder and I caught sight of the ring that I had seen earlier so I am pretty certain that it was the same bird.

You can see from this photo how hard it was to get a sharp shot in the dim light, there is a tiny bit of softness caused by the movement of the bird but you can get a good idea of how close this bird was to the house, just 6 feet in fact.