As I'm not likely to show you photos of that just yet I have taken some photos of an ornamental cherry which is covered in blossom. I thought this was odd because it also flowers in the spring but often has some flowers in late autumn and early winter too. At the moment it's quite covered in flowers but they are not as showy as it looks in spring, and as you can see in the first photo, against grey sky the flowers hardly show unless you get close up. Still, in January, who cares - just having any flowers is great! A friend suggested to me that it may be Prunus x subhirtella, which having read about it, I think it probably is.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/3345615/Winter-beauty-Prunus-x-subhirtella-Autumnalis.html
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| Ornamental Cherry blossom |
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| A close up of the centre of the flower, just after a shower |
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| Some of my Primroses are covered in flowers already! |
I've been practising taking bird photos on our feeders but finding it rather hard as they are very flitty, and even when they are settled on the feeders they are still continually moving as they eat. I need far more practice but these are the best of what I've taken so far.
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| Blue Tit. We have tons of these cute little birds. |
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| Two Blueys (as I call them) and a Great Tit |
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| Great Tit |
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| A little Blue Tit in my wiggly Hazel shrub |
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| From further away - a Blue Tit and Greenfinch sharing the fatballs |
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| Great Spotted Woodpecker Regular visitors to the fatballs and peanuts! |
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| Starling taken through the window on the last of the apples in our orchard across the road |
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| My OH took this one through the double glazed window, even so it's not bad. This is a Sparrow Hawk who obviously missed grabbing a small bird from the feeders! |
Some lovely bird images Mandy. I'm no expert on plants so was really surprised to hear about your cherry blossom! Happy gardening :-)
ReplyDeleteI'm relieved that the Sparrow Hawk failed in it's mission!
ReplyDeleteLovely pics.
Philippa
A lot of nice pictures ! Your last one is a lesson, how to feed a bird of prey ! They also need to be nourrished !
ReplyDeleteThe apples remaining in the orchard are a nice gift
Keep up with the bird shooting! You've some great results already :-)
ReplyDeleteThanks very much Steve, Philippa, Cergie and Chris!
ReplyDeleteI've seen Sparrowhawks here from time to time but they always seem to miss as the little birds just scatter really fast - well they must get birds occasionally or they wouldn't exist but I'm rather glad I don't see them taking them from the feeders!
Really pleased I found out about my strangely behaved cherry tree and it's a shame that the apples are over now as they have always attracted the winter birds such as Fieldfares and Redwings. Saw some Blackcaps still around eating them in December!
Nice set of birds you have here!
ReplyDeleteThanks very much dreamfalcon and thanks for visiting!
DeleteJust signed up as a follower of your lovely blog. I'm a fellow bird blogger from Washington State in the US. http://birdladyblog.blogspot.com/
ReplyDeleteHi Sherrie! I will pop over and have a look at your blog soon. I noticed you were posting them on G+. Thanks very much for having a look - I'm a total beginner at bird photography so having both fun and frustration doing so... but love bird watching and have been doing that for many years!
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