Steppe Grey Shrike

in better light it was a truly stunning bird

Steppes

the upper two flight shots are obviously not sharp but they show some nice poses and the extended wing pattern; the bird was feeding on earthworms in the wet and muddy field so even when the sun came out it still often had a muddy front end

amazing day in Lincs

we started out in the gales and heavy rain adding Steppe Grey Shrike to our county lists and then moved on through Ouzels, Glaucous Gull and Tundra Bean to be standing at Saltfleet when a female Desert Wheatear was found only 800m away! my first female Desert and what a little stunner; I am about 5% of the way through the day's 10GB of images -- this is the shrike early on in the rain

Bluetail 3rd in Lincs amazing

and the 6th for the county but no longer a really rare bird -- even so every one a little stunner and again I moan about the total lack of light - 1600 ISO in use again -- if the sun ever comes out we will all be blinded --- 

more tails

I am struggling a bit with the ageing of this bird -- it surely looks like a male with the brightness of the tail and the developing whitish supercilia plus the very obvious eye ring? but the pointed pale tips to the tertials and flight feathers suggest that it is a first-winter? so perhaps it is an advanced first-winter male -- need to do some more research

the thought was there

there is a perfect spot in a small wood on my local patch which looks just right for a Red-flanked Bluetail with ivy covered trees and plenty of cover but open enough for  a bit of flycatching; I stand and watch for any movement in a rather vain hope and was doing so today when a movement actually reflected a vibrating phone in the pocket passing news of a R F Bluetail at Chapel Six marshes -- well right idea and obviously the right day just the wrong spot -- anyway I was there in 90 minutes and here it is as seen in a conifer tree and as an angel at 40th second in flight --- just the sort of photos I like!

Pallas and Ruby-breast

closest I got to a mega but this warbler has maybe seen a few on its travels

Pallas's Warblers

Two different birds in these images from the three individuals seen today plus 4-5 Ring Ouzels, 3+ Waxwings, 6 Lap Bunts, Chiffchaff with odd call and just as it got dark a chekking bird in the car park that I could not even see in the intense gloom!

Proregulus

is bird photography fun, a challenge, stressful, easy, a challenge, rewarding, a pain, impossible to get right or just plain daft ?-- after another day with two Pallas's Warblers at close range but in appalling light (1600 ISO all day) and sometimes fog that was visible at 4m I tend to think that daytime TV may not be as bad as it appears -- now what's on offer for tomorrow?

Goldcrest

Oh for some brightness never mind sunshine anything above 90% on the grey scale would do

I think the look on this bird's face just about sums up the weather -- dull and wet

6 hours for 1 minute not a good Pallas's

apparently this Pallas's Warbler was very showy yesterday! today I spent 6 hours waiting for it to put in its all too brief appearances that generally involved a dive into a bush, out of bush into another, then gone -- I'll be back in 3 hours ta! ---when it did come in for a few seconds longer it was blowing a half gale, dreary and black with thick low cloud-- photos taken on 3200 ISO 1DIII , 500f4 with 1.4 converter, 250th second at f 5.6 -- amazing to get any sort of result but not the pics I was hoping for!

Lesser Whitethroat race ??

I gave up trying to sort the races on these birds a few years back -- does this bird looks pretty standard for a late autumn individual?

cold and dark day at Gib

a dismal day weather wise at Gibraltar Point -- in the bright spells that were very few and of short duration this Garden Warbler fed on ivy -- it had blood around the bill base suggesting a recent collision with something and perhaps a reason it was still around on November 1st; the Black Redstart was taken in near total darkness mid afternoon