More Bird Pictures

Just a wee note to post more bird pictures from a few days ago.  Now that spring is here, they are darting all over the place and costing me a fortune in supplying them with food!!

Male Chaffinch

Little Bluetit

Sparrows and Goldfinches, including a Goldfinch in flight

Goldfinch

"Skull-duggery"

As yesterday was quite a nice day I decided to do some tidying in the garden.  While clearing up leaves from under the shrubs directly under our livingroom window, I found the skeleton of a bird (probably either a starling or a blackbird).  I think the poor thing has flown into the window and been killed and I've never discovered it till now.  I found the skull pretty well intact so tried out the macro function of the camera to capture the image.  Look away now if you're a bit squeamish!!!

Hungry Birds

You've probably heard of the game 'Angry Birds' but in  my garden it's a game of 'hungry birds'!!!  They are positively eating me out of house and home at the moment!!  It's costing me an absolute fortune!  However, I don't really mind as I'm getting a nice mix of birds coming to the garden and I can see them beginning to pair up for the spring, so I'm hoping that they all bring their babies along once the eggs are laid and hatched.

It's been a bit windy today, but I caught quite a good shot of a chaffinch today getting it's feathers ruffled by the wind.

RIP Davy Jones

It's very sad to read of the sudden passing of Davy Jones from the Monkees.  He was my biggest heart-throb of the 1960s, and I had posters and pictures of him pinned up everywhere!!  I reckon he was probably my first celebrity crush - him and Clint Eastwood!!!

RIP Davy Jones

A wee walk in Gosford Estate

As it was a lovely day on Sunday we decided to have a walk around Gosford Estate in the winter sunshine.  We got all togged up in our cold weather gear and set off - we were too hot!!  It was just lovely in the estate to see the snowdrops all blooming and the other spring bulbs all coming through to give a glorious show in the spring, although it was very wet and slippy underfoot.  The damage from the recent storms was also very evident with some huge trees having been blown down and snapped like matchsticks. 

As ever, I took my camera with me so I have included a few of the better shots I took.  After our walk we popped into Gosford Bothy Farm Shop for a coffee in the cafe, plus we bought some nice fresh produce at the butcher to take home with us.  The Scotch pies were lovely and today we will try out the Stornoway black pudding - the steak pie is in the freezer for another day!!

One of the  ponds

Dancing on ice!!

The Boathouse

I think this is the ice house and is either 15th or 18th Century

Some of the local residents!

More of the local residents!

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch

This weekend it was the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch which I took part in for the first time.  I thought it would be quite easy just sitting for an hour counting the birds that came to feed in the garden.  Not so!!  There were so many darting about that I couldn't be sure if I counted the same once twice, or possibly more!!  I also tried to take some photos, some of which were more successful than others - it's not easy taking photos through glass and trying to make sure that the birds don't get a fright and fly off!!  Here are one or two of the better photos that I managed to take.

Coal Tit

Robin

Chaffinch

Goldfinch

Garden Birds

We now have quite a variety of birds coming to feed in the garden and I'm particularly delighted to see goldfinches coming as well.  We've never had these birds before in the garden and we started off with just one a few weeks ago, but I'm sure I counted five this afternoon.  They are very quick and it's difficult to get a good photo, but I was VERY lucky to have captured this one.

Goldfinches