Sanderling bonus

set off for my walk this morning and it was dull and cloudy and rain threatening so left the camera in the house, even 8kg gets heavy after 5.5miles, but then thought about some of the pics I had been looking at on the net last night and went back and picked up the camera and it would have been a disaster if I hadn't -- came across these two Sanderling on the closest bit of mud available and they were so tame I was able to enjoy them down to 4m for 30 minutes before the local farmer started shooting at Jackdaws and Rooks (cretins abound in the hardest of times) and the Sanderling flushed on the first gun shot -- One is ringed but with only a metal ring where was it trapped? heading for the real high Arctic where we should have been in June!

House Martins

much cooler and duller this morning so the hirundines were low down -- tempted by some House Martins over the water 

Holly Blue

one from a few weeks back now -- just landed in the right light in the garden

Spoonbills

different takes on the same subject

this morning's offerings

my first Common Sandpipers, well behind the field, one or two more Common Terns, a picturesque
Pied Wagtail and a fleeting Weasel

the local Ring Ouzel

after looking at an awful lot of fields finally came across this male three days ago but only saw it in flight -- yesterday it was close but the camera was at home so walked back this morning with the camera and fortunately he was still there occasionally getting flushed by carrion Crows

Tawny Owl

the flock of mobbing local small birds gave it away --

scanning slides

using a very low tech method to copy some old slides onto a Canon 5D3 then running Topaz software over them - some actually look better than the slides many of which are over 25 years old -- Lanceolated Warbler, Pechora Pipit, Siberian Blue Robin and Siberian Rubythroat from China 1993