Long-tailed Tit

We had plans today to visit a friend of mine who recently moved to a new home near Cranham, about five miles north of Stroud. R. and C. had a new house built to their own specifications next to an ancient woodland and they asked me to come and photograph a particular feature of the house, which the designer wanted to illustrate an article in a magazine.

But as I feared R. rang this morning to say that he would have to postpone the visit, as the approach road to their house was as slippery as the 'Cresta Run', as he described it. I was looking forward to the challenge, s well as the chance to see them and their abode which I last saw when it was nearing completion.

So I set off with a camera out into the garden before walking to the cemetery and Daisybank to look for more sledgers in action. When I set off there was some weak sunshine just about breaking through the grey clouds, whilst snow fluttered slowly but steadily down.

I did manage to see an unusual, and unidentified, flock of birds, about twenty in all which landed on the big ash tree beyond the garden for a short while, before circling off and across the valley. I wondered whether they were displaced visitors who were sheltering here from harsh weather elsewhere.

A buzzard circled above me and was low enough for me to get the best pictures I've shot of one so far. I also had fun with a robin, who kept landing close by me as robins do when you are digging a garden in the spring or summertime.

But I liked this particular Long-tailed Tit, which I noticed trying to get some food out of a what appeared to be a tiny shell. It had landed on this tangle of vines and clematis, perched in a rather ungainly manner, before it finally got the seed in its mouth, with only one foot gripping the branch. Going larger may help you to see it. I do find them enchanting and fun, especially when they are in their small flocks.