BIRD PIC'S

Here's some of my latest bird pic's

      male chaffinch

       male blackbird. we've had this one around all last year notice the white splash on the tail.

           female blackbird

            jay

       great spotted woodpecker amongst the feeders

                               goldfinch

          great tit

          great spotted woodpecker

     This jay has learnt how to hold on to the feeder and empty about 10 peanuts at a time

      It's got 7 peanuts crammed into its beak, wonder what the record is?

     It then flies off to bury them. Been trying some flight shots lately without much success as you can see.

                          Have you noticed this great spotted's tongue poking out? it must have seen me with the camera, thier tongues have barbs on them and have a sticky substance on them also this is for getting at the grubs and insects that live behind the bark of a tree and for hoovering up the ants on the ground. Don't know what they use it to eat my peanuts for.

       Here's a close up so you can see it better.

        Between the squirrels and the Jays the peanuts in my feeders dont last long.

                What did I tell you.

     I know their greedy rascals but they are kind of cute.

       coal tit

     The squirrel's emptying my bird table now! I'm off to buy some more nuts, and seeds and fat balls and............................?

ANSWERS

Thanks to the thousands of people that didn't enter my egg quiz.

The answer is the PIED WAGTAIL {motacilla alba yarrelli} - latin/scientific name.

We had a pair build 2 nests and successfully raise 2 broods except for the unfertilised egg in a small shed near the house.

WHO'S EGG?

My oldest step son Thomas was rummaging about in one of our sheds and came across an old nest with an egg in it. I know the nest in question and the species of bird that built it and laid the egg but do you? Here's a couple of pic's to help you.

The bird in question is faily common is black and white and the 1st part of its latin or scientific name is motacilla.

Sorry I'm skint so no prizes available it's just for fun Good Luck.

LOOKING FOR SNIPE

Nest finder extraodinaire Steve Carter and myself went on the top of the moors on mynydd Llanhilleth hoping to flush a snipe or 2 so I could hopefully get a pic of one. When we met up the mist and fog and the rain were closing in. Steve flushed a couple of snipe but the conditions were that bad and the light so poor that getting any reasonable photo of one was an impossability. We did see a buzzard on a telegraph pole, and a flock of redwings and fieldfares.
I think Jack and Deano our respective dogs enjoyed themselves in the bog.

                   Steve Carter, trampling through the bog

        our flock of redwing and fieldfare (what do you mean which is which)

                Jack

             Deano  (where's them bleeding snipe)

GARDEN FEEDERS

These are my two feeding stations I have around the house.

This one is outside our kitchen window.

This is my main feeding station at the back of the house where most of my garden bird pictures are taken.

With the light being so dark now its nearly winter it's difficult to get sharp images, they're a bit grainy especially if you bump the iso up, you also get little specs of colour on your images this is colour noise, you can get a lot of it off with photoshop but this degrades the images. Here's a few of my better pic's over the last few days.

                                    female reed bunting
                     

                            male greenfinch

                                magpie

                        blue tit

                           jay

                                       great tit

                       nuthatch

                   goldfinch

             goldfinch's

                   male brambling

                   female brambling

                      female brambling

                                 jay

                 goldfinch's

                    jay

                       jay

               grey squirrel

                      jay

I'll have to start going further afield to photograph some new species for this blog. Being very lucky living on the mountain I do have quite a few different species coming into my feeders, with a bit of luck perhaps I'll get some new birds coming in if the weather gets really cold.

SOME OLD PHOTO'S

Been fixing some old photo's for my in laws all done now thank god took ages, well here are the results what you reckon?