Blackbird – London, January 2010
Our house has a mature pyracantha hedge that surrounds the garden on two sides. It’s a great plant for a number of reasons: it is evergreen (meaning that we have year-round privacy); it makes masses of sweet-scented blossoms in the spring and summer; it has formidable thorns (meaning good security); and in the autumn and winter it is covered in brightly coloured red and orange berries. Or rather, it was until early January.
On 5 January, it started snowing and the land only really thawed out yesterday. There was much complaining in the press about cancelled flights and delayed trains, but for the most part, people did not starve. But for garden birds, the situation was very different. If you have no stores of food and no paws to dig through snow and ice, the frozen ground is a feeding disaster and starvation a real possibility. It took only a day or so for the birds to discover that our hedge was a veritablle smorgasbord of non-frozen nutrition and soon we were inundated: blackbirds, blue tits, robins, wood pigeons, fieldfares, black caps and chaffinches were suddenly making swoops on the hedge all day long. Over the course of less than a week, they have systematically picked the hedge clean of berries. It does not look as pretty anymore, but it’s great to know we helped so many birds to survive the cold snap. This picture was taken on the first day when the birds started feasting on the hedge – a female blackbird delicately picking a single berry.
Saturday Snapshots is a series of non-food photographs published every Saturday on CookSister. Previously featured photographs can be viewed on the Saturday Snapshots archive pages. Many photos featured in Saturday Snapshots are available to buy as high-quality greeting cards or prints in my RedBubble store, or even as high-quality A3-size calendars. If you want a custom calendar with your own selection of photos, starting with any month (not only January), please e-mail me and we can discuss your requirements.
Beautiful!!!!
Timing is everything in life and in photography…and yours was perfect that you actually caught it with the berry in the mouth. Fabulous.
How perfect. I have had a flock of white galahs outside my window this morning. By the time I got my camera they had flown too far away to get a good shot.
That is impressive. In my neck of the woods it’s virtually impossible to get a close-up shot of a bird without it flying away!
That is an awesome shot!!!
Susina – thanks!
Joan – I have to admit that there were a couple of discarded pics too, but I knew eventually I’d get her just nibbling the berry!
Barbara – just had to look up galahs on Wikipedia as I’m not familiar with them – they look so exotic & beautiful! Shooting pics of birds does make you realise that shooting pics of food is not without its advantages. For one, the food can’t fly away!!
Manggy – I will admit that there was a 300mm lens involved… 🙂 But yes, they were very nervous & did fly away a few times…
Nina – thanks!
Wow! That is incredible! Beautiful!
Take a look at that Jeanne…LOVE it! Not easy to get a bird nibbling…lovely!!
love the shot!! you are really blessed to be living amidst beauty like this.