Cuteness Phasers Set To Stun!

Sometimes you just have to do it don't you.

Yes I could have blipped this Whitethroat singing away at Newport Wetlands.

Or this Whitethroat tucked away in the brambles in Perry Lane.

Not even my first Bearded Tit shot after two and bit years of trying made it! Although I am still buzzing from the excitement of finally getting a photo of one. Okay, it is behind a reed, and it ain't going to win any awards ... but it is the first one I have ever got, and even this one only sat there for a few seconds!

But there was only one star of the show today, and that was this fairly newly hatched cygnet Mute Swan. Both the little 'un and the parent bird were out on the water when I arrived at the screen, but I quickly worked out that they were going to return to the banking right in front of me, so I sat and waited patiently for the swimming and preening lesson to end. When it did I was rewarded with some really intimate photos of the birds.

And so my nature reserve tour comes to an end. After visiting three reserves in the five days I can't really complain, it has made up for those few weeks sat indoors watching the rain fall.

Back to my garden birds tomorrow ... I wonder what they have been up to whilst I have been away?