A wary and hungry dunnock

The rain was imminent and there were droplets in the air when I poked my camera out of my study window early this morning. On looking down over the patio beneath me, I again spotted several bird species busily hinting for their breakfast.

There were half a dozen long-tailed tits, a bluetit, a blackbird, the usual magpies and crows further away in the trees at the bottom of the garden, whilst a seagull circled slowly over the rooftops. I love longtailed tits with their preference for flocking together and singing as they swoop round and about in a rather flighty way. They visit often but don't stay long in one place. I couldn't open the window wide enough to capture them together and they didn't seem to want to visit the bird feeder on the cabin which was the nearest to where I was hovering.

A lone goldfinch, which is rather rare as they also like to congregate together, perched high up on some wires, but too far to be sharp for me. We had seen a woodpecker yesterday, before I started making fire in the garden, but it flew away too quickly for Woodpeckers to get her camera ready, so she will have to wait a bit longer to blip one.

I looked around from my vantage point this morning, noticing the rain was getting heavier and then saw this dunnock hovering about beneath the elder tree hanging over the fence from our neighbour's fence. It was walking all over the patio chair, a little nervously, possibly waiting for seeds to drop from another feeder in the elder tree. Sadly that was already empty.

Then it looked up and began to open its wings before taking a sharp left hand turn straight towards the feeder. I haven't actually seen it manage to eat from a feeder yet, and normally I notice dunnocks on the ground warily pacing about around and beneath shrubs. I've read that they have rather a delightful singing voice, but I haven't managed to distinguish it yet. Perhaps I need to have an ear test, as well as my eye check-up yesterday.

The rain is now set in and I can hardly see across the valley, so this heavily cropped and grainy picture will be an early blip for me today.

From wiki:
The Dunnock (Prunella modularis) is a small passerine bird found throughout temperate Europe and into Asia. It is by far the most widespread member of the accentor family, which otherwise consists of mountain species. It is sometimes called the Hedge Accentor, Hedge Sparrow or Hedge Warbler. The name "dunnock" comes from the Ancient British *dunn?kos, meaning "little brown one".

The main call is a shrill, persistent "tseep" and a high trilling note, which often betray the bird's otherwise inconspicuous presence. The song is rapid, thin and tinkling, a sweet warble which can be confused with the Wren, but is shorter and weaker. The Wren's song incorporates repeated trill sounds but the Dunnock's does not. While the Dunnock's bubbling song is very pleasant, it has been described as being similar to a squeaky trolley wheel.