Fab Four at Pennington Flash

Willow Tit

I decided to stay local today and visit Pennington Flash in the hope of seeing the recent Redpolls and Siskins that have been showing so well. I parked at the first car park so that I could wander up the East Bay side of the Flash and as I approached the location of what I formerly named 'John Taverner's Stump' after a local bird photographer who used to feed the birds there, I could see a bird photographer already set up there.

Blue Tit

It turned out to be Ian Greenhalgh who is an expert naturalist and bird photographer and he kindly allowed me to photograph the birds which were coming to his home made perches and feeding trays.

Robin

Ian had set up the perches to be in perfect light with no distracting backgrounds and he talked me through the routines he uses to encourage the birds on to the perch where the camera is prefocussed. The main target birds here were Willow Tits, although there were also Blue Tits, Great Tits and a Robin coming to the food.

Great Tit

So all I had to do was click my shutter button because Ian had set it all up ready to go, and these are the shots I took. I never did get to see the Redpolls and Siskins as I spent so much time chatting to Ian. But I did learn a lot from him and for that I am most grateful.