The garden keeps giving

I shouldn't imagine any of my regular visitors will be surprised to hear that the Boxing Day Pike fishing produced absolutely zilch! Admittedly, it was a very pleasant morning spent with Benno and something which doesn't happen that often now days. There were a few birds to look at, including Great White Egret, a couple of Chiffchaffs and a Firecrest but no fishy action. With Bev not feeling particularly sparkling, at present, I can't make plans to get back out on the bank any time soon. Not to worry, 2025 is fast approaching and I should get plenty of scope to cast a baited rig once the masses have returned to work, thus leaving me to wander, at will. 

Hedgehogs continue to appear at the feeding station on a nightly basis. I haven't bothered with the camera and this proved to be a major error, yesterday, when a magnificent Fox appeared on the scene. I won't make the same mistake again - I hope?  One surprise was the discovery of a tiny micro moth, fluttering around on my study window. Quickly potted up, it turned out to be a Garden Mompha (Mompha subbistrigella) and quite an unusual sighting, although not unique, at this time of year. 

Not particularly great light conditions, I had the EOS 70d set on
1/500th sec with auto ISO and technology did the rest.

This morning saw another appearance of the male Sparrowhawk, this time perched on the fence a little closer than previous occasions. He is a magnificent individual and one I won't tire of pointing the camera at. I've recently commented upon the improved image quality that I'm now able to use to illustrate my blog entries thanks to the 20 million pixels of the Canon EOS 70d. Now whilst I have nothing but praise for this piece of kit, I have been looking at alternative options, within a sensible price bracket, and have seen a viable upgrade to 32.5 million pixels, and all it would offer, for less than £700 - watch this space!