They’ve All Got Names Now

OK! I might be getting a little obsessive about these critters, but I still don’t think I have the perfect shot of them. The bird table is working superb, and they love the food….my god do they love the food, but I’m beginning to think they are on to me. Why do I think that? Well let me explain:

I put out their favourite food, on a perfectly level surface (I know this because I used the dusty spirit level on it) and there’s not a cat in site. I wait behind the camera, nothing. Not even a fly. Sometimes I would be happy with a fly, believe me! Yet the moment I sit behind my computer, away from the camera, it’s a Hitchcock movie; more Tit’s (they are birds Tracie) than Linda did Dallas. Get up and try and take a photo; GONE! Even the fly stays away.

Are these birds more organised than we think! Do they have a spotter out there with binoculars watching me get up and down, up and down every 2 minutes of the day. Have they a psychoanalyst Tit sitting out there watching my body language telling them when I’m fully engrossed in processing a photo and that now is the time to attack, ATTACK!

It’s driving me nuts. I wake up at night in a cold sweat thinking they’re nicking my haute cuisine bird food and I’m not there to take the photo. That one of them is hanging on to the bird table; tongue out, wings out stretched, dancing in front of the lens. I can’t take normal photos because in the back of the mushy pea I call a mind, I KNOW they’re taking the piss at home. My Wife, Andrea is in hospital (slipped disk, 1 year ago, second opinion, new scan, operation, coming out tomorrow), when I visit her, and I know white walls and no TV can be boring, but all I’m thinking about is that those fat greedy bastard Tit’s are scoffing my food…. they are getting a freebee meal and I could be getting that perfect photo. This is what they’re doing to me!

Now I know a lot has to do with the weather; it’s been greyer than a Russian political conference. To combat the weather I thought of using my halogen inspection light; this thing is more powerful than the lights they used in Berlin in 1944, all this seemed to do though, was too melt the feathers from their little bodies plummeting them to earth like a led brick. So shutter speed, ISO and aperture have not exactly been spot on, which is what you need for the perfect photograph, but come on birdies, play ball. I’m not a soup kitchen or a MacDonald’s for the feathered fraternity, I need a bit of pay-back! And soon! Before the wife leaves me, the neighbours call the white wagon and Nikon take the camera off me for misappropriate use of a precision instrument.

Anyway, the long and the tall of it is that I have started naming them; yes, it’s that sad. This photo is of Henry who is the daring one of the Tit group/family/commune and is usually the first one to visit the 5 birdie star table too critique the fine offerings I have to offer.

Click image to see the large version

The only problem was we had our first hard frost this morning, so the bird table was ever so slightly… a lot slippery. I’ll give him his dues though, he was also the second one to visit the table today as well.

~ by ducatirider on October 29, 2007.