a juvenile Marsh Harrier

 an easily identified juvenile even in late January due to its head pattern and pale fringes to the uniform wing coverts and flight feathers 

Red-breasted (aka fancy) Goose at Gibraltar Point

 I had avoided looking for this bird in the depths of the Wash earlier in the month but when it popped up at Gib Point and was having the odd wash and brush up on Tennyson's Sands the 60 mile trip seemed worthy of effort - first saw one in Lincs courtesy of Martin Davies at Howden's Pullover in November 1984 followed by the two that wintered in the same area in 2006 - 2007 so it had been while since seeing one

Marsh Tits

Headed to Lincolnshire's best Marsh Tit site last week for a refresher not having seen any in the county since 2013 when the vagrant was at Alkborough

 

Long-tailed Tits and lichens

watching this flock of Long-tailed Tits this afternoon and was left trying to work out what they were feeding on? constantly picking at the lichens on the branches and trunks of the ash trees but surely not eating the lichen but maybe finding something under the lichen?

I am getting more used to the Canon R6 and learning to appreciate the real features that make bird photography so much easier - the auto-focus is very very good with the eye tracking working really well even on passerines, the EVF allowing you to see what exposure you are getting and to adjust it instantly with a quick turn of one wheel, totally silent shooting with the Electronic shutter means zero disturbance of feeding birds which is maybe one of the most important features, the high ISO performance and the superb quality of the sensor just make for a game changing performance compared to my previous DSLR's and I loved my Canon 5D4's 

exotic Lapwing still hanging on

 The White-tailed Lapwing still at east Halton on its lonesome - presumably if the weather does not get too bad and it survives the attention of local predators it will be around until spring! 

Nutter and creeper in the park

 Although I have 100's of images of birds like Avocets, Marsh Harriers, Hen Harriers, various wildfowl and seabirds I have always tended to fail to take images of commoner woodland birds so this year I have decided to try and improve on that poor record; yesterday in the low winter sun I went into the local park to check on the Nuthatches and managed a few images to start the year - a Treecreeper was also in the same tree but the sanitised ground had no beech mast and so no Bramblings --