Teased by the Turtle Dove

Well the last few days have been pretty frustrating. Attempting to get some more photos of the Turtle dove, but not doing very well!

A mix of sunshine and showers have made for interesting and difficult lighting conditions. Here are a few that I’ve managed to process today, still got more to go through though.

The local Robin has been keeping me company whilst waiting for the Turtle dove to appear.

A couple of young Greenfinches have also been hanging around. You can see in this photo that the light was really poor, and it was raining too, I would have liked to get both youngsters in focus, but couldn’t get a quick enough shutter speed.

After teasing me with his soft melodic purring song from the hedgerow the Turtle dove eventually put in an appearance in the rain.

Only to disappear a few seconds later, spooked by my neighbour. You should just be able to make out a rain drop in the background… (Click for a larger view.)

But the Robin came back.

The Turtle dove did eventually return in slightly better light.

Get outta the way Woodpigeon!!!

Still a few more from the garden to go through…

*UPDATE*

And here they are…

This female Chaffinch and her mate are the latest visitors to the new feeding station.

A fledgling House Sparrow – you can still see the yellow gape. Siblings in the background. It’s a treat for me to see House Sparrows around, as where I used to live we didn’t have any.

Anyone bored of Robin photos yet? My composition went completely wrong with this shot, with the Robin right in the centre of the frame, but I liked the pose and lighting and it’s nice and sharp, so it seemed a waste to bin it. So I cropped from the right, so the birds position in the frame was better, and then extended the canvas on the left by the same amount that I’d cropped, and used PhotoShop’s ‘content aware’ tools to copy the background. The content aware tools do a really great job. Saved this shot anyway!

Trying for the Turtle doves again tonight…. Fingers crossed!