I have been working at my office most of today on my plans for Gardeners’ World Live, but that does not mean I cannot enjoy the wildlife in my patch! Not only do I have all the cameras on a monitor next to my PC, but my upstairs office window overlooks a hedge and the top of it is eye level with my window. I have my ‘hedgecam’ feeder on there and the birds have been sitting in the snow-laden hedge, waiting for their turn to go on. Today, there were about ten blackbirds up there, enjoying the chopped apple and raisins I put in the bowl. There were also a couple of house sparrows; rare visitors here.
I am almost eye level with the birds from here so I took some shots through the window. I often take pictures from here so I try to keep the window clean, but the camera does struggle to focus sometimes, through the double glazing. The snow seems to enhance any colours in the birds, making the male house sparrows looks truly beautiful… I love their muted browns and greys.
The dunnocks look pretty too…..
The blackbirds also looked stunning and, as they popped up from the back of the hedge, I was able to take some images that might be a bit different from the norm. It is a nightmare trying to get the exposure correct when you have a purely black bird on a purely white background…. I got a lot wrong! I uploaded all my images onto a Flickr set if you would like to see some more.
The blue tits have been lining up to go on the window feeder and I got a couple of shots of them too..
… and of course, the day would not be complete without a robin shot!
I am pretty sure I have kept a large population of birds alive the last few days… I have certainly got through a lot of bird food!