I Tawt I Taw A Puddy Tat...

Well that Bastareaud and the French team certainly ran us very close in the 6 Nations this afternoon.

With their mascot Le Coq Gaulois today, followed by the prospect of Billy Bantam (Bradford City) and Cyril the Swan (Swansea City) for the Capital One League Cup Final tomorrow I thought a tenuous birdy blip might be in order.

I couldn't sleep again much last night because of my bad throat, and so was up again this well before light. It was so early I seriously heard an owl hoot at one point, as I brushed my teeth.

I then went into the office to do a little work for an hour; walked to the supermarket; had a coffee out and read the papers (hey, Oiseaux de Nuit was running in the 15:20 at Kempton).

When I got back home MrsB was still peacefully asleep. I took her a cup of tea up after nine, and her first words were to tell me she had been dreaming of melons (She is obsessed with fruit that girl, but trust her to break my birdy run of puns).

Anyway, whilst I waited downstairs for us to have breakfast together, I decided to fill all the bird feeders in our Mock Orange tree and set my iPhone video running amongst the branches to see what it might capture close up.

Sods law but it took about 15 minutes for just one solitary Siskin to turn up at the Niger Seeds. You can see a 1-minute video of the little fella here. The photo is a screensave from that.

When the light is better I will try this capture method again sometime, as it is a great way of getting close up with just an iPhone. I liked the way the Siskin was posing for the camera at one point.

Postscript: I found out afterwards that the collective noun is an Ebert of Siskins (and a Vein of Goldfinches).