Dull?

It is often said that our British birds are, well, rather dull and in some cases that is certainly the case.  We do seem to have a good many LBJ's in this country (Little Brown Jobs!).  But, on our rather soggy walk this morning, no-one could have been less than stunned at the colourful birds on show in the trees around the Straw's Bridge area.  The only drawback was that none of them stayed still long enough for me to get a picture.  Typical!  But, to start with, one of the most shy and elusive of these birds was seen in the Willows.  A Jay (Garrulus glandarius), with it's very distinctive flight pattern, looking as though it is 'rowing' through the air rather than flapping.  The most colourful member of the Crow family, this photo was unfortunately not taken by me but 'borrowed' from  Wildaboutbritain.co.uk

Not an L.B.J, I think you'll agree.
The next little stunner this morning came in the shape of a small group of Bullfinches (Pyrrhula pyrrhula).  There can be few more colourful birds in our trees, although, once again they tend to be rather shy and fly off as soon as you point a camera at them.  I did manage to get a couple of pictures of one Bullfinch some time ago.  Although not brilliant, they at least show off the male bird's spectacular red breast.

Even the humble Woodpigeon (Columba palumbus) is worth a close look.  The pale pinks and greys coupled with the blue-green flash on the neck and white 'shoulders' make this one of the most handsome of our birds and so familiar, that we tend to overlook it.  But see what you're missing if you do..

Who's an LBJ now?