Kingfisher

This week I got closer to a Kingfisher than I ever dreamt possible. As I was on my morning walk I discovered it sitting quite happily on the river bank just above a cauld searching in the shallows for it's staple diet of small fish. I must have been no further than 20 feet away from the bird which was completely unfazed by several passers by including a jogger who passed within 6 feet.

Couple of pics

I was delighted to get these photos of two elusive birds in the snow. Although the Dabchick can regularly be seen it has a habit of diving underwater at the wrong moment. The Brambling is a seasonal visitor and from my past experience can say that this bird doesn't stay in the area too long. In fact it only seems to appear when there is snow on the ground, hangs around with the local chaffs for a few days, then disappears again.

Little Grebe

Finally managed to get a photo of a lone Dabchick which has been around for the past few weeks. Not an easy task as every time I got it in focus it decided to dive and then reappeared several yards away!

We saw the old year out with a brief visit to the garden by a small squadron of Long Tailed Tits which disappeared again before I had a chance to grab my camera. As their previous visit to the best of my knowledge was just after Christmas 2006 we are probably in for a long wait for them to visit again.

Today we had a decent fall of snow and I was able to identify a lone Brambling amongst the many Chaffs which gathered at our much in demand feeders. Once again my attempts to grab a photo failed miserably partly due to the fading light as it was mid-afternoon when I saw it.