I came upon a pair of Long-tail Tits early this morning and it was really nice to see that one was carrying a small piece of lichen. Long-tail Tits decorate their domed nest with small pieces of lichen, and similar. When I have discovered their nests previously I have always been really impressed by their beauty. The nests is a domed ball of feathers and other material, held together with spider web. There is a small entrance hole, usually hidden at the back of the nest. The nest is lined with feathers and it’s a very cosy and warm construction. They lay a large clutch of eggs even as many as 10. At this time of the year they will be seen in pairs but at the rest of the year you will see them in small groups, usually the young ones from a successful breeding season and the parents.

I watched this pair for a while and I am quite sure I know where their nest is. In the past I have discovered nests in gorse bushes and this pair seemed to be making a bee-line and disappearing in to an isolated bush. I will keep my eye on this bush over the next few weeks.

A little about my camera and Raw photos compared to JPEG. If you are a photographer you will find this interesting. I have noticed that my images since I bought my Pentax K3 have been a little disappointing, they always seemed a little unnatural in some way and unless the lighting was absolutely perfect I had real problems with noise. I chatted about this to a friend who is a keen photographer and it was interesting when he suggested what the problem could be. The new Pentax K3 while having lots of “bells and whistles” has a 24 mega-pixel sensor. Apparently because of the amount of pixels it shows more detail and consequently if there is noise it will show up more. I reasoned that if I could take pictures in a smaller size, then this may eradicate the problem. And so it proved. I decided to shoot in a reduced size JPEG instead of Raw and bingo! This seemes to have solved my problem and my photos today are the best I have taken for a long time. Comments anyone?