A rare appearance by a Dunnock

I was sitting at my desk soon after 8am this morning whenI heard the unmistakeable sound of a woodpecker pecking on a metallic surface.  I had an idea that it was hitting the side of the peanut feeder in the garden so looked out of the window and watched it bashing its beak relentlessly. I wondered whether the feeder was empty so went downstairs, with a camera of course, and holding my first strong cup of coffee of the day.

I took a couple of pictures of it through the double-glazed patio door, and as I thought by the time I got the door open it had flown away.  I was right about the empty feeder so remedied that problem and sat down to see if it returned. It wasn't long before other birds raced in to grab some food with a choice of suet pellets, peanuts or sunflower hearts.  Some of the birds are very sensitive to my presence whilst others  surprise me by tolerating me at quite close distances.

The nuthatches sometimes fly on to the rhus tree when I am standing beside me and eye me up as do robins, which is not surprising. Today the goldfinches kept their distance although I had seen a pair of them eating early this morning.  A blackbird also was quite desperate for food, eating the dropped seeds from the ground beneath the feeders, although they kept flying up on to the branches close by enviously as they cant eat directly from our feeders.

But the biggest surprise was the arrival of this dunnock on the main branch beside the sunflower feeder. Uusually it is very timid and private keeping to the cover of the undergrowth and rarely revealing itself. So by standing out proudly on the branch and eyeing me up it has to be my blip subject today.