A Busy Blue Tit

This is the side of an old building below with wooden beams running through it and resting on the outer walls. Some birds will exploit old buildings and use available entry points for nest building.

The Blue Tit is one of those birds.


Here is one of the pair arriving with food for either, the other partner on the nest or young that have hatched out. From the amount of times he visited and the time of year, I would guess it was the latter. You can observe that as with many busy birds in the process of rearing young, he looks rather scruffy and unkempt.


He entered the space under the beam and left again shortly after.......


.... only to return again many times with food in his beak.






I was some distance away and this continued on without a break.


Blue Tits nest in trees, holes and cavities in walls, garden sheds, they are also one of the species that will regularly use nest boxes. They produce one brood from 7 to 16 eggs during April/May. Its no wonder they are kept busy, feeding that many.

Another Coot Dispute

The Coot, a most argumentative bird.

Some shots I took are rather too gruesome to post here. Coots are some of the most territorial of water birds. There were several pairs having a go at each other and it is basically a dispute over a small area of water and waters edge. This occurred at the edge of a large lake and you would think that there was plenty to go around, but they still have to argue about it.

The Wren, the Reed Bunting and the Goldfinch

Three of our resident species which I photographed recently.

Wren (male/female)??
Your guess is as good as mine as they are just about impossible to tell apart)



Reed Bunting

Male.


Female.



The Goldfinch.

A Robin in the Shade

A couple of unusual shots of a Robin I photographed in dense woodland, but just catching a ray of sunshine on its back.

Great-spotted Woodpecker

I was fortunate to catch sight of this female Great-spotted Woodpecker before she observed me. She had just flown to the side of a tall tree and I happen to be under another nearby tree, but behind her flight line. So I took several shots of her entering the hole in the tree and she then left and returned twice more.







I then decided to move my position to get a clearer shot around leaf laden branches. That was a mistake because on her return the next time she became aware of my presence. She stealthily approached the tree trunk from the opposite side from me and on several occasions peered around the edge of the trunk.

Although this was amusing to see her do this, it was time for me to move on as I didn't want to disturb her from feeding her young. You can just make out her head in the image below and that she has food in her beak.

Canada Goslings (Part 2 - The "Bigguns")

The second of a two part post showing two families of Canada Geese with goslings, which I photographed this week.

This is the family of two adults and three goslings. These goslings are somewhat larger than the other family.

Canada Goslings (Part 1 - The "Littleluns")

This is a two part post showing two small families of Canada Geese, which I photographed on a walk this week.

The first part shows a family of two adults and two small goslings. The second part will show another family with two adults and three medium size goslings. This is quite small numbers for this species, but this is probably because they are early broods. They were all sticking together as one extended family for protection purposes, which is quite normal for Canada Geese.

Butterfly of the Week

The Common Blue (Polyommatus icarus)

My featured butterfly from last week. As the name suggests, a common variety of the 'Blue' family, in fact the most common of all. It can be found throughout the UK and flies between mid May and mid October.

The male is shown in this series of images and is easily recognised by the orange spots mainly on the underside of the inner wings. The topside of its wings are plain blue. Whereas the female has more pronounced orange spots on both underside sets of wings and is mainly brown on the upper wings.

It likes grassland and rough open terrain and its main food plant is Bird's-foot Trefoil.