Synchronised photography

Today provided better light than we've had to endure recently, and the vicious wind of Friday dropped, though it was still pretty cold at 8°C. Common sense told me to stay indoors and nurse my cold, but I didn't get where I am today, etc., etc., so I swathed myself in thermal layers and went off to Hillers for an hour. The hide was so full when I got there that if I'd been wearing any more layers I doubt I'd have been able to squeeze onto the bench; as it was, it felt as though we all had to shoot the same thing at the same time, just to avoid clunking our cameras together.

Having insinuated myself onto a few inches of bench, I asked the standard question: "Much about?" The response was, "The usual suspects," though they did say there had been a blackcap around during the previous hour. I'm not disputing this, but it didn't reappear while I was there. There was a brief visit from a treecreeper, which I saw but didn't manage to get a lens on, and otherwise it was, indeed, the usual suspects. Still: I got some fresh air, which I wouldn't have had if I'd stayed at my desk, and my "fair exchange" visit to the farm shop after leaving the hide saw me taking home not just a large bag of apples for our garden birds, but some chocolate tiffin for R and me to have with our coffee after Sunday lunch. So, result.

I always try to snap the nuthatches on the upright logs around the edge of the bird table, rather than on the food, but this requires sitting and waiting with the camera pre-focused on their favourite landing spot, which today's need to perform synchronised photography made impossible. But when all the lenses swung in this direction, I flowed with the wave and caught this moment, and despite the numerous deficiencies of the image I find that I still quite like it. If you're able to view it full-screen, I hope that you might be able to excuse its shortcomings too.