BRAMBLING

The Brambling is a winter visitor to Britain, it migrates for the winter from scandinavia and north east europe. They start arriving in September and stay through to late march early april then they fly back to their breeding grounds. The males and females differ the male Brambling having a black head extending down to the back and a pale throat, the females are much drabber in appearance. Just before the birds go back to their breeding grounds you'll be able to see the males in this plumage but in the winter months their head and back is much more duller and scaly. They often feed with Chaffinch's who they are often confused with on tree seeds such as beech mast.

The photograph above is of the female.

OUR DOG JACK

By popular request (you know who you are!)  here are some pic's of our old softie Jack the jack russell, our family pet who's been with us for the last 6 years. We've had Jack from a six week old puppy and he's me and Tina's youngest son. 

THE CHEEKY FOX

Since living in our mountain home we've only glimpsed any fox briefly, but recently there's been one fox that has come right up to the house. It came first of all in the dark and was setting the security lights off where you could see it prowling near the patio doors, even to be so cheeky as to look into the living room. Now though we see it regulary in broad daylight, what a beautiful animal and I beleive britains largest carnivore. Once there were 3 of them all in broad daylight outside the house, our dog Jack goes mad every time they're there but we keep him in until they're gone.

We have the hunt up here during the autumn and winter months the local farmers give them access I for one  hope this one survives. 

MY FIRST BLOG

                Hello and welcome to my blog

I've been interested in birds since I was a young lad and have got into photography especially birds and wildlife over the last about 10 years. Hope you enjoy your visit.

Me and my wife Tina, managed to buy and renovate an old house on top of the mountain in farmland in the south wales valley's. It was a dream move for us as we both love wildlife and the great outdoors. Here's a couple of before and after shots, as you can see there's a lot of work still to be done especially on the landscaping front. We managed to get some work done but with the absolute dreadful summer we've had it's been pretty hard going.  The rest of our family consists of my 3 step sons and our dog  Jack a 6 year old jack russel who's an old softy I've also got 2 grown up children of my own.

My camera is a canon eos 450d and my lovely wife bought me a 400mm canon f/5.6 prime lens out of my overtime god bless her and that's where most of my photo's come from.

I've set up a bird feeding station at the back of the house and take a lot of my pic's through the bedroom window, our house is like a hide an expensive one though.

Here's a couple of my better efforts.

 

Well this is the end of my first blog hopefully I'll get better with time,  cheers.