Blip sorted

I was sitting having a bit of a rest in the family room this afternoon and chatting to Smithers, commenting that I didn’t yet have a photo for today’s blip, when the Traveller walked in. "What’s that big bird on the hedge?" he said. He’s not particularly a lover of wildlife (although he adores cats) so for him to ask that question meant that it must be something special. I stood up and looked out of the window and was amazed to see this sparrowhawk sitting on the box hedge beside the lawn, just a few yards away from us.

Did I have my long lens beside me as usual? Reader, I did not. When I dashed to get it, was the battery about to run out? It was. Am I a silly billy? You bet.

The last time I saw a sparrowhawk in our garden was November 2020. It was duly snapped with no difficulty on that occasion because my camera was right beside me – which is just as well, because the bird didn’t spend more than thirty seconds sitting on a branch of our cherry tree before it swooped down on some poor, unsuspecting creature in next door’s garden.

My luck was in this afternoon, though, because not only did I have time to dash to the hall cupboard to get my camera with the long lens (the phone, even on 3x magnification, was well out of its depth) but I also had time a couple of minutes later to dash to the craft room and retrieve the spare battery from its charger and put it in the camera when I realised the other battery was about to die on me. 

The bird was still sitting there on my return. Blip sorted.