Monday 25 January 2010

Surprise Garden Visitor on Sunday

I have seen a Reed Bunting in the garden on a couple of fleeting visits over the last couple of years but they are very infrequent.

I rattled off a few pictures today of this one that popped in for a few feeding sessions, essentially just for record purposes.  Taken through glass it is not as sharp as I would like obviously and with the messy feed table, but thought I would share it with you all anyway. Virtually full frame and ISO 1600.  1Dmk111, 500f4L + 1.4 EF TC

It provided a bit of light relief for me while I was wading through a massive report I am writing.




This male is on its way to breeding plumage.

Martin

2 comments:

  1. Nice image Martin, greatly complemented by the uniform background.

    We had a similar long-term visit that started before Xmas, however my wife and I only had the female to ID from (beautiful head markings and strongly speckled breast BTW for a little brown job!). Excited by narrowing it down to a few more rare buntings (Little, Rustic or Lapland) brought in from the far north, we (a few days)later got the answer when we caught sight of the male in the snow - interesting how the vivid black I'm used to seeing in summer was sort of half brown half black in winter.

    What was even more impressive for me on Saturday (after a week of post-snow earlier (read dark!) starts to work) was hearing quite an unusual & quite melodic song coming from one of the boundary trees. No binos to hand but 95% sure male reed bunting. Not quite Robin material but well impressed with short song compared to the grating call I normally associate with in summer. May be marking out a territory with other half due to being spoiled with all the feed we've been putting out this harsh winter. Fingers crossed!

    Best regards
    Julian

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  2. On the subject of garden visitors, it's the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch this coming weekend. It only needs one hour over the weekend and provides the RSPB with valuable data.

    http://www.rspb.org.uk/birdwatch/

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