Firecrest in Italy

Yesterday's blip was long distance, today's is close. This little fellow (or lady) popped up and posed at our first stop on today's outing, to the northwest of our rural hotel in northern Italy. There was one lovely life bird for us--the Woodchat Shrike (not a photo op), but otherwise we mainly saw the usual suspects.

The European Firecrest is closely related to the North American kinglets, including obviously the Golden-crowned Kinglet. They all are very active and difficult to photograph, so I'm especially pleased with this image.

Tomorrow is the last day of our trip, so I'll try to provide a summary then.