Another beautiful spring day, mild and sunny, which brought a sequence of near misses with several woodpeckers. Clearly a busy time of year for them. I spotted the first of them early this morning. Typically it stayed firmly on the wrong side of the tree trunk.
Later in the day I saw another. I inadvertently disturbed it in grassland at the start of the South Downs Way and just caught a shot as it disappeared into a tree. This is actually one of the more typical sightings of these very skittish birds. A flash of colour moving quickly in the wrong direction. If you see that, odds are it's a woodpecker 😉
The third one evaded the camera entirely. I could hear it, the unmistakeable hammering of a woodpecker on a hollow trunk, I could see it (briefly, but long enough to see that it was the great spotted variety), but it would not come back round into view. Staying on the wrong side of the tree is a fine art with them.
I did have rather better luck with some much larger birds. Like swans. They find it difficult to hide from view.
No trouble either with this odd looking goose. It was swimming with the Canada geese but its marking are odd in the extreme. I'm really not sure what it is.
And finally, to prove spring is really here, a butterfly (small tortoiseshell to be precise, and my first of the year).
Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.
gdare
7 Mar 2013That second photo of a swan is just adorable :up:
Words
7 Mar 2013Darko, I got several similar shots, but I really want a decent swan-in-flight picture. I'll have to be patient.
SittingFox
9 Mar 2013I'm hearing / missing woodpeckers as well. I haven't seen any tortoiseshells yet, but there was a solitary brimstone in the North Downs last week.
Words
12 Mar 2013Adele, they'll all be shivering now. This wildly erratic weather can't be good for butterflies.