The Colourful Crow.

I had a very enjoyable morning on Wednesday with my good friend Phil hoping to get some photos of Jay from his hide.

With a glut of Acorns this winter not so many continental Jays came over to spend the winter in Britain this year, however, the resident Jays were still here and they performed well for us, along with other winter birds including the Long-tailed Tit and Nuthatch.

The poor weather came back in a little earlier than we had expected but we still managed a few hours in the hide before the rain stopped play.

Nuthatch.

Long-tailed Tit.

Blue Tit.

Jay with Acorns.

Dinner.  (Male Pheasant).

Flying Pintail.

It was good to get out with Paul and Pete yesterday, primarily hoping to see and photograph some more Bearded Tits, however, the weather ended up not being too helpful for this and apart from a pair seen at distance we failed with this species.

All was not lost though as we managed to get some practice in at shooting some Duck and Geese.

There were plenty of Brent Geese about and we had several flypasts with both single and small groups of geese.

Brent Geese.

However, the stars were without doubt the Pintail ducks that flew over us many times giving us plenty of chances, although once again the light could have been better with generally dull and cloudy backdrops.  It was good though to see these superb duck at pretty close range as they flew over, generally in pairs.

Pintail.

The day before I saw my 2nd butterfly of the year, this time a Red Admiral on Ashdown Forest during a walk with Nigel.

Red Admiral.

The Wall Brown Larvae.

With the milder weather continuing overnight I headed up the hill to do a short hunt for Wall Brown larvae, having found 6 so far throughout the Winter months, I was hoping to add to the tally.

One of the tussocks with 2 larvae produced again, but only one other of the original 6 was found.  However, a further 5 larvae were found bringing the grand total for the year up to 11 and a count of 8 today.

One of the larvae allowed close-up photos and another that was feeding on the outside of the tussock gave good in situ images.

Wall Brown larva.

Two images of the same Wall Brown larva in the tussock.