Photos from today including Swallows and Nuthatch

 

This is one of the Jay pair, l am quite sure that it is the female.  She is perched on a stout post that I hammered in to the earth about 10 feet from the feeding log and at exactly the same height and ditance from the hide.  I thought this plan through in quite some detail, I set up a situation that would allow me to photoraph them  in flight, and capture them flyng in sharp focus.  The plan was to tempt the Jays to fly across from one food source to the next following a straight line that I could predict and then with the camera pre-focused, capture  a great shot.  Well, it's coming along very nicely but still needs a bit of fine tuning. I worked out that the Jays would prefer to fly to the more familiar feeding log first, before then flying over to the other one for more food and thats exactly the way it worked out.  I put 4 or 5 peanuts on the log and the same amount o the post and then after retreating to the hide, focused the camera on a spot just to the left of the post.  The Jay duly obliged by flying to the nuts on the log and quickly saw them off, then, still hungry she flew over to the post where more nuts were waiting.  I love it when a plan works out, well almost because I hadn't compensated for the way she would alight to the top of the post, not flying in a straight line but swooping low before landing on the top after flying upwards.  A failure [photographically)success because she was only half in the frame, but at least I knew that my plan had worked and my now "trained" Jays were flying exactly where I wanted them. There is quite a gap between feeding visits so all in all, during the afternoon they came in a couple of times and I almost had some success each time.  Then later on in the evening I tried again and this time I was slightly more successful, but again not quite because with wing extended I couldn't get the flying bird fully in the frame.... but all most! 

Its now going to be just a matter of time before  I sort this out and get some perfect photos.

 

 

By the time I took this it was getting later in the day and there was not quite enough light to capture the action properly.  You can see though that the Jay is flying up to land rather than in  a straight line, obviously an easier manoeuvre for them.

 

This morning at the stables the Swallows were performing really well and I get some really good close ups as the adults came down to gather hay and grass for their nests.

 

A pretty bird when you get close to them.

 

Nests are made of mode but lined with feathers and straw.

 

This ragged bird is in fact a young Nuthatch in moult, it looks more tidy  than yesterday when I saw it so I expect in a week or so it will be a very smart looking bird indeed in it's new attire.

 

The majority of the wings and tail are already quite smart.