Fast

After consulting two different weather forecasts, casting some runes, reading my tea leaves, and finally tossing a coin, I decided against a trip to the owl field today, because... well, because. If the forecasts and the chicken entrails are correct, there should be better light up there tomorrow, so I may go then - though the Cotswold scarp has its very own weather system, which regularly confounds all the forecasting programs, so we'll just have to see.

Anyway, I'd made my decision, so when R and I went off to Stratford at lunchtime for coffee, walking, and a little light Christmas shopping, I turned my eyes firmly away from the Cotswold Edge and ignored the fact that it looked to be sunny up on the scarp. Though I was breathing quite carefully as I drove, and had to work hard not to whiffle.

Once I'd parked in Old Town R headed off for a river walk, while I made straight for Holy Trinity churchyard with a bag of bird seed in my pocket. Baiting the mossy tops of the old gravestones didn't work as well for me today as it did last Friday, possibly because it was later in the day and the birds were less hungry, having been fed already by other people. But I did have some success, especially with one of the resident Coal Tits, which seemed to be following me around. Even when I walked away into the shade of a yew tree to give it plenty of space, it kept choosing to eat on the closest stone to where I was standing, which makes me think it had worked out that while I wasn't actually a threat, the other birds thought I might be, so it could eat in peace while using me as a shield. Fortune favours the brave.

This Goldcrest wasn't tempted by my bait because it's almost exclusively insectivorous, so I'm especially pleased with this capture. These tiny birds need to eat almost constantly to sustain themselves in cold weather, so their waking hours are spent foraging in trees and bushes for small arthropods such as springtails and spiders, as well as invertebrate eggs and larvae. I'd been keeping half an eye on this yew tree because I could see movement among the branches, and when the Goldcrest suddenly appeared and paused momentarily before taking off and flying to the next tree, I managed to swing the camera up in time to achieve a couple of focused images. In this instance, fortune favoured the fast.