Friday 25 December 2015

Birding Advent Calendar - Christmas Day


Back at the end of 2014 I made a list of goals for myself. Not something I normally do but maybe that is part of reaching middle age? A time when you begin to take stock perhaps?
Anyway, amongst many personal goals around losing weight, getting fitter (non of which permanently happened), visiting family more and enjoying more what I do for a living - I had a small little goal of photographing a Nightingale in song. They're a somewhat iconic bird for me, not completely sure why - perhaps their absence from Ireland as a breeding bird and scarcity even as a vagrant and then the shear difficulty in seeing one due to their skulking habits, never mind even photographing one.
So when John Geeson contacted me to say he had come across a little spot of suitable habitat in Suffolk where he reckoned there was up to eight singing birds some showing in the open, well there was no time to be lost. A dash out from work one Friday evening and I managed shots of this bird as it sat out its favourite bramble perch singing gloriously. I get great personal enjoyment when I look at this shot - it didn't get POTW or any other such accolades but to me its represents personal achievement and my best birding memory of 2015 - Happy Christmas!

Nightingale, Suffolk - May 2015


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