"Odds & Sods" (old version) - please add to the new thread 2020 instead !

Great photos all.  

A few more this afternoon before the heavy rain broke out again !     Tit birds are busy feeding young so I ordered extra live mealworms for them with the weather being so inclement these last few days and caterpillars being washed off the oak leaves.    

this GT ended up landing on my lap whilst I was changing camera settings - they are bold little birds but GT was reminding me to top up the empty mealie bowl   !

tatty Blue Tits,  they always look so ragged when raising young...........

the Coal Tits always do well with raising chicks each year ............. this was nipping back and forth to the nest with live mealworms

another tatty,  possibly female, robin ........

th casual dropped wing look ................ too pristine to be a female   lol

for very shy birds,   "Earl" the crow is getting more bold by the day, almost joining me on the patio  !!   

  he gets plenty of chicken, suet/mealworm nuggets and tinned dog food in the hope it saves a few baby birds from becoming dinner.   

hard to refuse letting the blackbird scoff two dozen mealies as they are such wonderful garden birds and dedicated parent birds.

Lovely, the birds are getting so bold as the urgency of feeding their chicks overrides their fears. I was hand feeding a Great Tit and was too slow getting the mealworms from the container so he went straight to the container while I was messing about. The Blue Tit is now taking food from my hand although more nervous. I've got a pristine looking Robin too. I suspect a male because he seems to be eating the mealworms himself and not feeding youngsters.

@ Tony, it's great to hear your birds are continuing to come to hand and helping themselves from the mealworm container - they do make me laugh at times, especially when you are preoccupied with doing something and they suddenly land on you !! Nice you have a robin too, I remember "Robbie" that you fed and can't wait for the sun to come out so you can take another photo of it sunning on your arm LOL keep the camera handy !

Hazy, I thought the Robin in your early pics was stamping its foot at the lack of speed topping up the mealies! Now you've got an agitated GT, too. If you don't watch out, the birds will be carrying placards soon "Fewer fotos … more mealies!!"

Great photos Hazy, those mealies going down a treat and looking at the hard working blueys and robin you will be putting up another garage to hold more treats and boxes of mealies - it can only get busier:-)

Grey heron fishing today. Not sure which file format is best to post as jpegs seem to be blurry unless you click on them... as an aside.

I got a personal display from a nice little Chiffchaff

Unusually, it wasn't content with singing. It kept flapping its wings too.

"I've got yellow underarm hair, you know!"

"You see, bright yellow!"

He kept this up for quite a while, almost as if he was developing his own display ritual to go with the song.

I've never one sing and display like that. I'm not sure what it was actually up to but it was nice to watch.

Thanks Hazel. He was relatively low down in quite a young tree, so the background is a bush instead of sky and everything turned out harmonious greens and yellows. He posed, sang and then flew off only to return a few minutes later and he did it several times so he obviously liked that particular tree. I thought it made for good photos, too (and I ended up with quite a few trying to get unobstructed views etc!)

Very nice pictures everyone, just had a couple of hours mid day looking for some dippers and kingfishers but all we saw were flypasts, we did find a Coal Tits nest and a Tree rat but it looked cute peaking at us from behind this tree :)