Whitethroat (Curruca communis)

Had great fun this morning, walking through the fields and paths where the local red deer hang out. I was serenaded by many different birds, including the chiff chaff, garden warbler, black cap, reed warbler, wren, various tits and this little fella, the whitethroat.  It's the first time I've managed to capture an image of this species and he was way up in a tree, flitting from one branch to another, so I was particularly pleased to get a good image of him in full cry.

Afterwards we visited Mosely Old Hall, a National Trust property north of Wolverhampton. The guide told us that the bed in one room was the very same that King Charles II had slept in while hiding from the Roundheads as he tried to escape. It does have a certain frisson to think you were walking over the very same floor boards as a past king from four centuries ago,