Day 25 - Robbin' Robin

Wasn't me, guv'...

Yet another relatively uneventful day, being largely dominated by this cold that just won't seem to go away.  It's getting annoying now.  My nose has been itchy and I've been sneezing for 4 days now.  Not to mention the crazy number of tissues I'm getting through.  Gah!

Still, First World Problems, and all that...at least it's not too cold, even with no heating in the house.  Well, that's not strictly true - some of the storage heaters are on (on the lowest possible setting).   But I haven't felt the need to light a fire, so it can't be too bad.

Stuck at home like this, I'm going a little stir crazy.  I don't quite know what it is about being off sick, but I really dislike it, I start to get depressed after a day or so.  I need to be getting on with my life...

So this afternoon I decided to dabble with photography a bit more, and try using Anna's zoom lens.

As it turns out, it doesn't immediately make you into an amazing photographer.  I had the same thing the first time I bought a decent guitar.  It had virtually no effect on my playing, much to my disgruntlement.   

Sigh...

I took a variety of shots of the birds on the feeders, and had a play with manual focus.   None of it was too successful.

I've chosen the image above partly because it was the nicest of the few I took (not necessarily the best technically), but also as a record of the current state of my photography skills.  

I'm hoping that when I look back in 11 months time, I will scoff at the rank amateurishness I showed at the start of the year...

The shot was taken from the chair at my desk, through a dirty window.   The robin is about 15 feet away from me, under the bird-feeders.  

You can see all the random foliage that's sprouted from dropped bird seed...tits in particular are fussy little buggers, often discarding 4 out of every 5 seeds they extract. 

I've no idea what the plant is, intermingled with the regular grass, but there's quite a bit of it.   Maybe neither those birds that feed on the feeders, or those that feed on the ground, are that enamoured with the seeds.

INTRUDER UPDATE

In other news, another visit from our new little friend this morning.  Here he is considering inspecting the cat-flap a little more closely, at 5.45am.

Still no pattern to his passing, except it's always at night.   

I can't see a collar...maybe he's feral?  He seems to be out all night in any case.

Curiouser and curiouser...