I haven’t had a small warbler in the garden for at least 10 years, so you can imagine how pleased I was when I heard an unusual call in the garden, mid-morning. I quickly went to the bathroom window where I have a good view of the garden in front of me and, as well as the warbler I could hear the sound of tits as well. As we haven’t had birds in the garden for the last few weeks I was pleased that they had returned. I noticed several Blue Tits, a few Great Tits and several Goldfinches and the the warbler exposed it’s self and eventually came up close to the house where I managed to get a reasonable photo. On inspection I am pretty certain that it was a pair of Chiffchaffs, a small warbler species that is known to over-winter here in Devon. This would add up because they are known to move around with the tit flocks. Willow warblers are probably moving on migration right now whereas Chiffchaff over-winter here in Devon. I also managed a nice photo of a Coal Tit, not unusual in the garden but the first of the winter and not a a bird that I have seen in the garden since last winter.

So that’s a good result, at last some activity in the garden and lets hope it’s the start of a lot more, (if the Sparrowhawk doesn’t come calling again).
Early morning, I went to the KF hide to try and take photos of her in flight. After yesterday’s Kingfisher show I was excited at the thought of more and didn’t need as much encouragement to climb out of bed and in to my boots as yesterday. It was very sunny and bright which is not always the case but imperative if I am going to get the flight shots that I want. But no Kingfisher today, no reason, she just had better places to be. When I got there though, the resident Grey Wagtails were arguing. Last year almost to this day, the male made a real effort to evict his mate and then spent the whole winter alone. I guess that is what is happening again at the moment. There was a lot of calling out and singing from the male and she (photographed below) was keeping a very low profile.