Robins and Calendars

I have just added next years A4 calendars for sale on my website. There are two to choose from, these being Birds and Mammals. They were very popular last year and make great Christmas gifts at £10 each inc p&p. Here's the link to the page - Steven Round Bird Photography A4 Calendars

Recently I have added 150 new Robin images to my website, making a total of 250. With a great assortment, many are in frost and snow and I even have them skating on ice. I will do a festive post featuring some of them nearer Christmas.

Photo of the Day - Great-spotted Woodpecker

One from some years ago.

Photos of the Day - Bathing Sparrowhawk

A few years ago this male Sparrowhawk would bathe in our garden pond, almost daily. On this occasion I was in my hide photographing smaller birds when it turned up. The lens I was using was far to big to fit all of the bird in and get shots of it bathing. So I literally crawled out of my hide and managed to get to the house, collected my 300mm lens , crawled back, swopped the lenses and the job was done. Who says you can't outwit a bird of prey.

Garden Coal Tits

Other birds that has been foraging in the garden pine trees are Coal Tits. Several pairs have been feeding on the seeds over the last month. They are a lot easier to photograph than the Goldcrests, especially when they hang off the pine cones.

Garden Goldcrests

Recently there have been good numbers of Goldcrests in the garden. Although I have had a few attempts at photographing them, the light has never been good enough to get some shots. Today I counted at least eight and this one posed for me for more than the usual split second, in decent light too. I'm still waiting for a Firecrest which I'm sure will turn up soon. My garden has a good record for them, having had three at once several years ago. I briefly saw one at the beginning of this year, so fingers crossed and watch this space.

Here's one of the Firecrests I photographed in my garden ten years ago.