I have been keeping this photo for a few days in case I had no bird pics to post and knowing how much people enjoy seeing my pictures I kept it in reserve so to speak. This is the male of the nesting pair from the garden.  They started breeding really early and in fact they were even carrying nesting material way back on Christmas Day. As yet though, no baby birds seen, probably because of the two rogue Magpies who skulk around on a daily basis.

A Blog is an online diary so I suppose it's just OK to let you know what I have been up to today, it's been quite interesting but not particularly fruitful. Yesterday we had found an unfortunate "road kill" pheasant which I picked up and brought home. Why you may ask. Thinking photo opportunities, I thought it would be a good plan to tempt the Maggies down to the carcass and then see how they deal with this sort of thing.  I laid the dead bird out on the lawn and as it was damaged I thought the birds would be in to feed on it quite quickly, but surprisingly  they are more than a little bit suspicious and haven't ventured down yet. so that's that. It's ongoing and we will see what develops over the next few days.

On the lawn we have good signs of Mining Bees, I am yet to get a good photo to confirm species but I suspect, from the very quick glimpse I had that the two holes are made by Tawny Mining Bees – Andrena fulva . You can see from the photo below that they make quite distinctive burrows. 

 Mining Bees are solitary bee species. The females dig the burrows and place pollen at the end before laying an egg. When the egg hatches the larva feeds on the pollen. The bees over-winter at the bottom of the burrow before emerging the following spring. If you are interested in these solitary bees then this is the time that they are the most active.