Hide and Seek

Giovanni the Gullible Goldfinch had been totally outfoxed by Cornelius the Crafty Coal Tit.

If Gioavanni didn't find him in the next 6 seconds he was going to lose the bet and have to spend the next week shelling sunflower seeds and feeding them to Cornelius on demand!

You know when you just feel someone's watching you? I got that today when I was in the back garden putting up my old tent. Well the neighbours already think I'm crazy so why disappoint!

The reason for setting up my tent was because I wanted to blip the woodpecker and I thought I'd use it as a bit of a hide. When I blipped a blue tit on Sunday, the brilliant Blipmeister trevorearthy said his friend used a hide, which got me thinking (always dangerous....). My old tent is green, small, perfect!

So I set it up amongst twitchy curtains, right in front of the tree with the feeders, and set to work.

I was only a few feet away, mini-tripod ready, head and neck at an impossible angle that I'm still regretting... Come on Woody... bring it on... come to pappa... let's do this thing...

I could hear him! Drumming away in a nearby tree! Apparently they're not even supposed to be drumming this time of year but he was going for it! No doubt teasing me knowing damn well where I was and what I was doing! Needless to say he didn't turn up.

Plenty of other avian action though but the light was dreadful and my little point and click couldn't cope! I think because I was in the tent porch which was a bit dark, the light sensor couldn't cope, so it maybe kept the shutter open too long and I got loads of blurry bird shots. I really don't know what I'm doing! God forbid I ever get my hands on a DSLR!

So I had it on burst mode and ended up with 500 shots of which 20 were OKish. In a way I'm glad Woody didn't turn up to the party - when I do eventually blip him I want it to be a good one..

So the tent's still up and if there's any brief moments of sunshine tomorrow I'll give it another go. If not - I might just blip the blippin' tent!