A Flock of Goldfinches

I just couldn't believe my eyes tonight when I looked out of the livingroom window after having topped up the bird food.  There were no less than 14 goldfinches!!  This is the first year that we've seen these birds in the garden - it all started last year when I thought I saw a baby goldfinch a few times, but then early this year we began to see two, then three, then five and then eight, but today when I counted 14 it was just marvelous.  We are also now beginning to see siskins appearing alongside the greenfinches, chaffinches, blue tits, coal tits and great tits, plus of course the starlings, blackbirds and pigeons.  The garden is just alive with birds of all shapes and sizes, but they are eating me out of house and home!!  It's costing a fortune to keep them going in food!!

Here are some recent photos of my winged garden visitors

Acrobat

Cutie-pie

Who da ya think you're lookin' at??

Pole dancer!!

17 and still with a glint in his eye!!

I've been playing with my new Olympus camera again - this time on the 'magic' mode in 'sparkle' setting, and I managed to catch this very lucky shot of my boy Felix!!  17 years old and still with a glint in his eye - how cool is that??

Olympus SZ-30MR Camera

I have splashed out on a new compact camera that I can just pop into my handbag rather than carry my Fuji everywhere with me, to be used for jaunts into Edinburgh or nights out or out and about on holiday at night.  Needless to say, I've had to have a play with it to get used to it, so here are some of the results

Fly on flower (macro mode)

Port Seton Harbour

Port Seton Harbour

Port Seton Harbour

Port Seton Harbour

Springtime

Although it has been a bit colder of late, it's springtime for sure with the garden coming to life with colour and the birds coming in flocks to feed in the garden!!  I just thought I'd share some recent photos taken around the garden.  This first one was taken in the waterfall part of the rockery playing with the star filter

Yellow tulips

These next ones were all taken looking through the livingroom window at the tree with the bird feeders where lots of birds are now coming to eat

Goldfinch waiting his turn

Goldfinch doing an impression of a woodpecker!!

'Punk Rocker' chaffinch!!

Bumble Bees

Although it's been a bit colder this week, the bees and insects are on the go, and this large Bumble Bee was flying about gathering nectar from the flowers today.  I think these are fairy lucky shots, but I'm quite pleased with them, so thought I'd just share!!

Bumble Bee in flight

Bumble Bee on flower

Bumble Bee in flight

Another Walk in Gosford Estate

As it was another nice day yesterday and knowing that the daffodils would be in full bloom, we went for another walk round the ponds in Gosford Estate.  Before that though, we popped into Redhouse Market Garden for some supplies.  As I had the camera with me, I took a couple of photos of the ruins

Redhouse

Redhouse

We then headed off to the estate and it was just so peaceful, although full of birdsong and geese fighting!!  The daffodils were just glorious and there were more birds than on our last visit.  We saw geese, ducks, swans and moorhens but, the highlight was seeing a heron and a woodpecker.  I could have spent hours just wandering round and round the pond taking photos!!  Here are a few that I did take

Daffodils at pond

Daffodils at pond

Reflections of a goose

Majestic swan

Looking through the boathouse

Heron on the hunt

He took off unexpectedly and almost got out of shot!!

Still hunting!

If you look very closely, there's a woodpecker hiding in the branches!!