New camera!

I've lured you in thinking i've got some dangerous SLR beastie haven't I? Well unfortunately that isn't the case, i've merely upgraded my phone. To a shiny new samsung galaxy s2 that has a whopping 8 megapixel camera attached to it. Considering my old phone had a shameful 5 megapixel bag of turds attached to it this must thus be regarded as a technological advancement on par with the invention of the wheel. By my estimates I should be able to produce 60% better images now!

A veritable plethora of assignments and suchlike has prevented me from doing any birding over the past couple of weeks except a couple of quick visits to see the Short eared Owls on the way back from uni so over the past two days I've been having a quick blast at the birds in the garden to see what sort of images I could attain with the new toy:

there's a few of these around at the minute.

and loads of these...

about 5 or 6 of these too....

but only one of these!!!

damn you autofocus!

squirl

terrible image (i can still do those) of a coal tit.

hungry goldie

perching goldie

perching bluey

ENORMO FINCH!!!

Enormo-finch

The other day I noticed a juvenile greenfinch under the feeders that had clearly been on the pies:

you

fat

knacker

Now I know first winter birds of many species are larger than their parents - I believe the tactic focuses on the theory that juvenile birds need larger fat reserves to get them safely through the tough times of winter because they're amateurish at feeding and stuff but I've personally never seen such a big Greenfinch!