The best birds in the world. Ever.

I'm back from five nights away on a ringing course. I was a bit worried before I went (it sounded full-on and rather intense) but once I found my feet and got the hang of how the procedures worked, I really enjoyed myself.

When a person is tired of Wrynecks, they are tired of life.

Wryneck!

Wryneck!!

TWO Wrynecks!

Not only are they astonishingly beautiful, they also do crazy things (video not mine, but ours did similar things. The birds aren't hurt; it's a threat display intended to confuse a would-be predator).

We were too busy to take many photos, but here is a small selection...

Male Bearded Tit!

Fabulous juvenile Whinchat

Female Nuthatch

Repeat-offender Tufted Duck - caught in a duck trap that works on the same principle as a lobster pot

Migrant warblers eat loads of berries. This is what ringers fuel up with at the pub...

We also caught Yellow Wagtails, House and Sand Martins, Swallows, Redstarts, Nightingales, Grasshopper, Willow, Sedge, Reed and Garden Warblers, Whitethroats and Lesser Whitethroats, a Mistle Thrush, a few Wrens, a Goldfinch, a mercifully small number of Blue and Great Tits, a Great Spotted Woodpecker and a load of other stuff I can't remember...

Oh, and while I was away, garden bird number 99 made it onto the list - Wigeon!

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D

And number 98...

This takes the biscuit, really. Getting ready to go to work, I was gazing out of the window over the garden and into the field of unharvested oilseed rape behind it.

Goldfinches, Greenfinches and a few Linnets have been nibbling on the pods lately, so when I saw a bird fly over and perch on the top I wasn't surprised.

Still, something made me look at it in the scope, and it was a chat! There was still mist on part of the outside of the window so my view was blurred. It took me a few seconds to be sure it was a Whinchat and not a Stonechat, but it didn't matter, to be honest - either would have been a garden tick (not that it's all about listing...).

What a lovely bird. It even had the decency to fly into the garden and sit on a shrub right outside the window! Sadly I was too slow off the mark to get the camera and scope aligned for a photo.

But I'm still astonished. This garden is ridiculously good, but pond aside, it's not really anything to do with me. Perhaps it lies on some bird-attracting ley lines...

Whinchat!

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640 + Leica Apo Televid 77 with 20x eyepiece

Whinchat

We had a good day for Whinchats near the Skala Polichnitou saltpans.

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM