Yes thats a male chaffinch, it does not look to be the same bird you photo’d before as that appears to have a black crown, but its not so clear & I’m now having doubts as when looking at the wing coverts white bar pattern it does look more like a chaffinch.
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Here’s another photo of the same bird from yesterday (from a slightly different angle). The beak would indicate it is a chaffinch (bullfinches have a more stout beak)?
Wishing you a lovely day
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Thank you for the document … it was a very pleasant read … it’s quite remarkable the effort they put into their identification whereas now one would just whip out an iPhone …
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Yes, and digital photography changed the world of the twitcher as no one can argue about what you saw. I’ve never been a serious twitcher of rare birds, but I have fond memories of finding a pair of black tern with my 7 year old daughter on my local patch.
Goldfinch turned up this morning. Singing on the roof.
This afternoon it was checking out the apple tree in the front garden, There’s been a goldfinch nest in it the last three years, hopefully there will be one this year. 
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We have the same tree, lovely foliage
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We have the first juvenile goldfinch bird feeder visits this morning; parents on the feeders, youngsters waiting in the nearby sorbus tree, lots of twittering & wing flapping when the parents go to feed them. They will be feeding themselves in day or two.
Next few days should see even more as we have ID’d at least three separate goldfinch pairs visiting the feeders, first as a general flock during the winter, then pairing up since early spring.
I’m hoping they too will bring their young in the next few days, then like last year, it gets really crowded.
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I don’t there is a humane way - they scare me because of Weil’s Disease .
Living with the back garden adjoining a field , they are common . I was at a rather smart champagne party , and we had a long conversation about the R A T problem
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The little darling was back in my garden the other day, again a Canon 4000D and a non L 75-300.
If I brought this photo back from Africa I would have been happy
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Camouflage?
More attempting to be unobtrusive
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Last drink of the evening
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Well after over 15 years of visits to the Outer Hebrides Islands in the UK, I finally got a view of a Corncrake last week that was more than just a sound or tiny head in the undergrowth ! You can say I was somewhat pleased… 
They are members of the Rail family though small, being about as large as a Blackbird.
Corncrakes in the UK ( and I guess in Europe) have suffered a catastrophic decline and is a UK “Red List” bird. They are very secretive and generally extremely hard to see. Given the very distinctive rasping call… ( sounds somewhat like running a nail over a nylon hair comb) all you usually know is one is close… I had almost come to believe they have powers of invisibility !
Call can be heard via this link…
Saw one in undergrowth near my holiday rental, then actually in the open !
Not the best pics but I was torn between watching and recording…
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Yes, trying to get the best picture can sometimes break the concentration of absorbing the experience and watching behaviour. Perhaps once in a lifetime. You were in the right place at the right time. Odd to think they were apparently once so common. Marvellous!
There’s a family of kestrels nesting in the cowls of the oast house next door to us but today one of the parents came on to our roof to keep an eye on things
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A few years ago this Sparrow Hawk nearly took my wife’s head off whilst it was chasing a dove. As you can see, it caught it on the drive, just in front of our camper van.
Canon 1D MkII with Canon 300mm f2.8 lens. Which I always had to hand for bird photography in our garden.
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Nice one ChifChaf - chuffed for you. Not a bird I’ve managed to catch sight of yet.
But, they are out there!
Cheers,
Ian
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