HERE and THERE

The HERE in the title refers to this week in my garden which has seen an increase in garden bird species;  coal tit has come to the feeders for the past couple of days ,having not been seen for months, then a greenfinch appeared today after a long absence. A not so welcome guest, perhaps, was the sparrow hawk which took a great tit from the feeders in front of my eyes! A goldcrest and chiffchaff have also been around, and a couple of juvenile blackbirds.  In the hedges there continues to be red admirals on the ivy and a couple of small tortoiseshells elsewhere in the garden.

List for this week is as follows: chiffchaff, dunnock, blackbird, magpie, great tit, blue tit, coal tit, robin, greenfinch, stock dove, wood pigeon, house sparrows, goldcrest, crow, sparrowhawk

 A few photos from the past couple of days:

juvenile blackbird

small tortoiseshell butterfly

just how many sparrow can fit in one birdbath?!

And look what happens when  I open the window to get better pictures of the birds around the feeders....

...no I didn't let him in!! ( he's not mine anyway!)

The THERE  relates to my morning visit to Farmoor Reservoir. A little stint was reported there yesterday but wasn't seen today but I did get nice views of a wheatear. Also seen were heron, coot, grelag geese, mute swans, mallards, tufted ducks, great crested grebe, blackheaded gull, yellow legged gull, cormarant, grey wagtail, pied wagtail. 

grey wagtail

pied wagtail on the steps

wheatear

grey heron