Jay meets Jedward

Look at my crest!

I caught a Jay in the garden this afternoon. They are gorgeous birds at any range, but when you're right up-close there's another dimension to them. As well as the dazzling azure blue of the coverts, there are tiny, hidden-away traces on the secondaries and the top of the tail.

Added to the constant, ear-splitting screeching and fierce biting and pecking, it's a feast for the senses. Just as well they don't smell nasty too.

photos taken with iPhone 4S

Frost at The Lodge

photos taken with iPhone 4S

Mr Pointy-beak

Here's a close-up view of a Goldfinch that you don't normally see. The long, pointy bill is ideal for tweezering out seeds from teasel heads. The dark nasal hairs at the base of the bill, and the red extending behind the eye, show that it's a male.

photos taken with iPhone 4S

Autumn leaves at The Lodge

photos taken with iPhone 4S

The eyes have it

I went to a friend's garden to try doing some ringing there for the first time. We didn't expect this - a male Sparrowhawk - to be the first bird in the net!

photo taken with iPhone 4S

All creatures great and small

Tiny froglet

Badger tracks

Leafcutter bee at work

Comma butterfly

Manx Loghtans just after shearing

Looking fleecier... just before leaving The Lodge

photos taken with iPhone 4S

Large, medium and small

Here are three birds I met recently.

Woodpigeon (600g)

I caught this Woodpigeon by accident. I decided to try putting up my recently purchased nets to break them in a bit (they are always a bit weird when you use them for the first time), so put one up in the garden in a really obvious position. But it seems this bird wasn't paying attention to where it was going...

Nightingale (21g)

Here's a Nightingale we caught during Constant Effort Site ringing at Paxton Pits.

Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (21g)

And here's a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker (a juvenile female) caught in Sussex. I didn't get to handle it, but what a remarkable bird!

photos taken with iPhone 4S

An afternoon at the seaside

photos taken with iPhone 4S

Gulls, gulls, gulls

I've been up north to Lancashire and Cumbria to help with some gull fieldwork. We're trying to work out what's happening to the declining populations of Herring and Lesser Black-backed Gulls.

Gull colony at Walney Island

Looking for nests

These ones are a bit young :o)

And so are these...

Walney Lighthouse

Ah! A gull that's the right size for ringing

Up in the hills

Feels odd to see 'seagulls' breeding on a moor top

Yes, we got rained on. A lot.

Gull #666...

photos taken with iPhone 4S

Mothage

Blotched Emerald

Bird's Wing

Rosy Footman

Privet Hawkmoth

Wednesday's moths

Meet the hawkmoths! Left to right: Pine, Elephant, Eyed and Poplar

True Lover's Knot

Green Silver-lines

Nice to catch a green moth

Peppered Moth

Shears

Full moth list follows, if you enjoy that kind of thing...