Hello! And I bring along a Fieldfare picture with me!

Hi all, 

I thought I'd give some background to explain why I'm so excited!

When we first moved into our house about 18 months ago there were no birds in the garden thanks to all the cats in the neighbourhood prowling around. It was very sad to see no birds as I'd come from a home with birds all over the place.

Being hypocrites we then got our own cat (although I'm a dog person, my partner sadly won). She has three legs but can still run like the wind and can be quite vicious with a mouse toy. When we first let her out in the garden I first sat with her on the sofa and had what I thought was a joking talk with her about the birds and bees. By this of course I meant what she could and couldn't catch in the garden. 

Whether it was my talk or not, she has never caught any bees, butterflies, birds, reptiles, or anything apart from moths and daddy long legs (which I have to admit I can't stand), so we love her! Any way, she also took over the neighbourhood, scared all the other cats away and made our garden completely cat free!

So now, 18 months on we have loads of different birds in our garden! Also because of the snow we've had a few more. I'm a photographer and I work from home. I have positioned my desk so I have a view of the whole garden which isn't usually very interesting. However three days ago I saw a bird in the ash tree that caught my eye. I tried to take a picture in time, as the camera happened to be on my desk, but couldn't. I was really upset because it was beautiful. 

Then to my amazement it came back today, sat in the perfect spot, and sat there for a good twenty minutes so I could get my tripod out of the car, dig out the old massive zoom lens from the bottom of a box and get a picture of it! So we looked it up just now and discovered it was a Fieldfare which is very exciting. As you can probably tell I'm not a wildlife photographer by trade, I'm more used to people!

The loveliest thing about the Fieldfare is that it's so sociable! It sat there watching me faff about with my camera, very intrigued, and wasn't even fussed when our cat came to stare out the window too. Very pleasant experience.

Just for reference, it was mainly eating the old apples on our tree, and we're in Stroud, Gloucestershire.

So, anyway, there's my first post, long as it was!