Norwich Starling Murmuration

As far as I know, and I'm happy to be corrected, this winter's Starling murmuration in the centre of Norwich is finished.  Hopefull they'll return next year as it was a magical spectacle which enthralled birders and non-birders alike.  There were too few to be able to muster themselves into any of the shapes that are seen in the larger murmurations, but that didn't detract from the event in any way.

Here are a few of the images I took over the course of the weeks.

Waxwing!

Ok, it isn't a fresh one.  A year ago today one was kicking about in the middle of Norwich City Centre. It ate apples, waited for a bit, did a poo, waited a bit longer and then went back to the apples.  It was a grey Saturday afternoon, with a Premier League kick-off less than an hour away.  Funny looks were the order of the day.

My overlong experiment with high ISO was in full swing.  With the benefit of hindsight I can comfortably state that as far as the image quality went I stuffed it.  Nonetheless here is a photo of the bird that I still quite like.  Those branches were always in the way!

Waxwing = nice

Juvenile Black Redstart

Looking forward to the return of the Black Redstarts to my patch.  Here is a juvenile from last year.

Resolution, or lack of it perhaps.

I considered doing one of those photo-a-day type resolutions for 2015, but then realised that I'd missed about half of January and the impetus was kind of lost on that one. So I've gone for photo-a-bit-more-often-than-last-year, which is a bit more realistic.

So in the spirit of my half-hearted resolution, here is a photo!!  I've taken a fair few photos of this bird in 2014, but a recent sunrise was too hard to resist.  The background colour is pretty much as shot.

Not-spot birding

Over the festive period I had the rare privilege of being off -grid  most of the time.   No phone signal, no wifi, no interweb, nothing.  Try it, you might like it.

That will be Devon then

On the first day I found that there were birds kicking about outside the window.  Three of them were Bullfinches, and two of them male.  Here is a snatched shot through the window.

As I was going to be there for a while, and I assumed that the Bullfinches would be too, I put some food out.  The Bullfinches were not seen again.  But other birds enjoyed the food, and I enjoyed them.

Nuthatch...

...Chaffinch...

...Robin, well it was Christmas...

...Bluey...

...Coalie...

...Greatie...

...Marshie...

...oh, and a Peacock.  They like fatballs.