Woodcock Pilot

I was trying to capture a wren in the bottom of the hedge when I spotted an even smaller bird, this goldcrest. I've noticed in the past that they don't seem concerned by my presence. They won't sit and pose for a pic though, they're constantly on the move. Shame the poor light has resulted in a very grainy image.

This I presume is a resident but huge flocks of these tiny birds, which weigh only the same as a twenty pence piece, fly here across the North Sea from Scandinavia in the autumn. People used not to believe that they were capable of the journey and thought that they hitched rides hidden in the feathers of larger birds like woodcocks. That's where the name woodcock pilot comes from. In Suffolk they were known as herring spink because they used to land exhausted on the rigging of herring boats.

Today's poem is My November Guest by Robert Frost. http://www.poemtree.com/poems/MyNovemberGuest.htm

"Not yesterday I learned to know The love of bare November days" too. 

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