To Beak or not to Beak

A great big thanks to everyone for all the comments, suggestions and selections for yesterday's Blip Jury blip. The response was quite amazing and, as might be expected there were a selection of views. However, the was a unanimous view that the mats should be neutral colours with no pinks or oranges. As a result prints 1 and 7 were remounted in cream and light grey respectively. Quite a few of you had suggested that the mats should all be the same colour if the prints were being shown together. They will, however, be individually shown so the variation in colours shouldn't matter too much.

As for the 4 prints to select, I largely went with your favourites and chose 2, 3, 4 and 7. The decision was certainly made much easier knowing your own preferences. I have learned so much in the last couple of days, not least what a brilliant community blip is. All that knowledge and experience from various parts of the World that can be tapped into is simply brilliant! Someone in Blip Central must have thought so as well as both day's blips made the Spotlight! So thanks once again to you all.

Today's blip is a little bit disturbing. As it has been overcast all day my blip opportunities were pretty limited. I was trying to get a decent shot of the Greenfinch, which was on a wall near the feeder, when I spotted the first male Siskin of the year. It was sitting quite still on the feeder and looking straight at me. I rattled of 5 shots and went back to the Greenfinch. It was only when I was reviewing the shots in the camera that I noticed something not quite right with the Siskin's beak. When I zoomed in there actually appeared to be 2 beaks. The one nearest me was broken and the one furtherest away looked OK on top but not quite right in the lower half. I thought it may be an optical illusion or another bird's beak behind, but all 5 shots showed the same double beak.

I googled double beaked birds and learned that beaks do not regrow. Someone else had seen a double beaked bid not dissimilar to a Siskin, but it turned out to be a sunflower seed in its beak. As can be seen this Siskin is feeding on Niger Seeds, so some other kind of seed in its beak is ruled out. Its all a bit of a mystery, but maybe someone out there is Blip World can help explain this most unusual situation.