Colourful garden tick !

British species can be colourful when seen up close in the right light, but come on! 

Clearly an escape, this marvellous creation was putting on a dazzling show in the afternoon sun. It stayed around for quite a while, spending time on the feeders and taking the odd drink from the garden pond between rest periods in the neighbouring bushes.

Through the wonders of internet bird forums, I'm told it's an Eastern Rosella, native of SE Australia.

Checking the time on the garden sundial

 

The last view was of it flying from the garden being chased by the resident collared doves. Sadly, it's future is unlikely to be as bright as it's fantastic plumage, but I hope it enjoys it's all too brief freedom from the confines of a cage.

To capture a Swift....

Another try for the local swifts this evening. Most of my shots are still ending in the recycle bin, but I was quite pleased with this one, though if my "keeper" success rate is anything to go by, I think this is more due to luck rather than skill on my part, I think. When up close, the birds are travelling far too fast to either freeze them in flight or to keep them in the frame. When at distance its difficult to get a decent image size and quality suffers. This is, once again, heavily cropped.

Nest Building

Progress continues under the eaves ...and I must confess, they're much easier to photograph when they're still like this!

A Welcome Return

House Martin's nesting under the eaves of our house used to be a regular annual event for several years after we moved into the village. However, for the last few years, numbers of visiting Martin's have dropped noticeably and, although birds have sometimes started nest building, these have been aborted before completion.
This year, the Martin's are back in higher numbers, which is great to see. Nest building has started in about 4 location around our eaves - considering the prolonged lack of rain, which must be reducing the availability of suitable nest-building mud, I hope they're more successful this year.