The hierarchy of our bird feeder

I've been getting up earlier than usual this last week as I have been working every day at John's house. Woodpeckers is now on holiday, but like me she is rather exhausted and was still sleeping when I rose to get a cup of tea. When I looked out of the window there was a light covering of snow, but the recent strong winds had died back, leaving behind another completely grey cloud cover which didn't look like it would ever clear.

I saw that the birds were thronging around the trees and shrubs near the bird feeders which had very nearly been emptied already. I decided to go out to the cabin in my dressing gown to restock the feeders. After filling the feeders with sunflower seeds I took some loose suet pellets to put out on a hanging tray for the blackbirds. I rather sleepily descended the steps down from the patio down to the garden where I could reach the tray in the rhus tree and skidded suddenly on the grass below the steps and ended up on my back covered in bird food and mud, feeling rather silly and a bit shocked. I wasn't hurt, luckily not hitting my head on the steps, but I did bruise my forearm.

I went back to bed for a while, drank tea and finished a good Maigret story with Bomble sitting on my chest and started to feel better for not having to rush out anywhere. When Helena had fully woken I offered to make some coffee and hot cross buns and went back downstairs. I looked out of the patio doors and saw that the assault on the bird food was being conducted by long-tailed tits, robins, bullfinches, blackcaps, chaffinches and a couple of blackbirds, with several pigeons eyeing up the activity rather enviously.

My new camera was on the table so I gingerly opened the sliding door and poked the lens out over the patio towards the fence. Two siskins were on either side of the feeder, when this nut hatch flew in to get his share. Being a rather dominant bird with the added advantage of a rather dangerous looking beak its imminent presence was enough to send one of the siskins away with a squawk, while the other siskin kept on merrily pecking at a sunflower seed. I have cropped the image enormously and am pleased with the outcome, a big advantage of the full frame sensor.

The camera was delivered in the middle of the week and I have had very little time or energy to play with it, not getting home until nearly dark each night. I am impressed, but despite the similarities with my other Canon camera, I'm finding it far more complex and sophisticated. I tried shutter-priority to see how well I could record birds in the poor light, and can see that I'm going to really enjoy its capabilities, once I get used to it! The manual is 400 pages long, twice the length of my last camera. Woodpeckers said that I will have to follow my dictum to some of my clients, summarised by the acronym RTFM.

I may try to look back at the few test shots I've managed over the last couple of days and may yet back blip. Right now it is teatime and I think I will go to join Helena and have a snooze.