It was a quiet day at Watermead, the weather wasn't ideal for photography and most of the birds seemed to be staying at home in their warm nests. The only picture worth taking on my walk round was this Coot feeding its chick, interesting the way the chick is almost on its side to receive the food.
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Canon EOS 7d, EF 100 - 400mm L Lens
1/125 @ f6.3, iso 400, 400mm |
When we got back to the car park, there were a few small birds about, mostly Robins, a Chaffinch and a sparrow. I put some bird food on the fence and waited to see what would come, a squirrel wandered across the tarmac but didn't come near to us and I was about to give up when a Robin landed on the fence nearby.
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Canon EOS 7d, EF 100 - 400mm L Lens
1/64 @ f6.3, iso 1600, 400mm |
I took some pictures but I already have a lot of Robin photos and wasn't too worried about getting more. This one kept coming and going very quickly, instead of posing as they usually do, so I thought something was different. Then this little (?) fella appeared.
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Canon EOS 7d, EF 100 - 400mm L Lens
1/64 @ f6.3, iso 1600, 400mm |
At first I wasn't sure what we were looking at but it was obviously a fledgling and it kept on opening its beak or gaping for food and it was soon rewarded for its efforts.
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Canon EOS 7d, EF 100 - 400mm L Lens
1/50 @ f6.3, iso 1600, 400mm |
Given the young one's size it would be easy to think it was a cuckoo, but that is the right size for a Robin fledgling and in fact it's not as big as it looks - the feathers are all puffed out (much like an adult in winter), I suspect it's to keep it warm and make it look bigger to a potential predator.
Apologies for the slight softness of some of the images, it was very low light in the car park hedges.
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