Garden Bird

After your very kind response to yesterday's rather colourful blip, it seemed a shame not to have another go in colour again today, notwithstanding the grey skies and fairly constant drizzle.

You might imagine how surprised we were at seeing this fellow when we first looked out of the kitchen window at the garden pond this morning.  In addition to the lady mallard, and two drakes (who are regular visitors at this time of year), we saw this rather striking mandarin duck.  

He has not visited before and we haven't seen him around when we've walked by the nearby river.  He seems to be the lady mallard's favourite and was doing a good job at fending off the attentions of the two mallard drakes despite his being smaller.  Perhaps that tipped beak of his gives them a bit more of a nip than they are used to, or perhaps its the sight of his exotic plumage and fluffed up neck feathers.  

A year ago, I managed to get my first shot of the lady woodpecker that likes to eat the peanuts on our bird feeder.  I was delighted to have done so, as she is a shy and cautious bird and easily startled.  She visited again this morning, and I did get another shot of her, but how time has moved on, for her to be displaced by a Chinese immigrant to these shores ;-)