I am in the middle of a disappointing few days birdi wise where I have just not had any luck with my Buzzard project and for that matter, the Kingfisher, both not been performing very well and have spent countless hours waiting for them to put in an appearance.  On my last few visits neither have landed on the specially placed perches..  Last evening I had an email from Bloomsbury Publishing, who are collating photographic images for a forthcoming publication The Handbook of Western Palearctic Birds (HWPB) by Hadoram Shirihai and Lars Svensson. This is a major new multi-volume book, destined to become the standard taxonomic work of reference for the region. This  will be published in two volumes and will contain more than 4,000 photographs.  They asked for permission to use this  image of mine – see below – which depicts a first winter male Cirl Bunting. This will be another coup for me as a photographer with my images being used in several worthy and weighty published reference books.  I have to say that I am very pleased with these achievements.  I searched my hard drives for large files of this image and as I searched I re-visited several images that I really enjoyed seeing again.  I thought I would share them with you to enjoy.

1st Winter male Cirl Bunting.

Female Linnet.

Osprey over-wintering in South Florida.

House Martin Exeter Devon – collecting nest mud.

Curlew Sandpiper – Southern Spain.

 Nuthatch – Devon.  I honestly think that this is amongst my very best photographs.

Moustache Warbler – Southern Spain at University ringing study.