Bird-photography from the living-room

It is late October and most birds have left their breeding grounds up here in the north. With the last month being dominated by heavy rainfall and wind, I can see their point in choosing to spend the winter further south, even if I myself can`t stand warm temperatures and very much welcome the winter.

Some birds stay during the whole winter, and more and more birds are gathering around the small feeding-place that we have in our garden, to feed on sunflower-seeds. Some days, a handful of seeds is all that is needed to do some nice bird-photography in the rain.

When I was out refilling seeds the other day I managed to scare off one of my absolute favourite birds (but a bird that I have never seen around here before) - a Great Grey Shrike / Varsler (Lanius excubitor). I failed to find it again, but instead another bird of prey visited the feeding-place just a few minutes later - a Sparrowhawk / Spurvehauk (Accipiter nisus).

Sparrow Hawk

Soon after having scared the smaller birds away, a Jay came flying and landed higher up in the same tree and very clearly showed that it did not like the new visitor at all. When irritated, jays often announce a bird of prey with a harsh screech and raise a crest of feathers on their head which made for a funny picture of this colourful bird.

Eurasian Jay / Nøtteskrike (Garrulus glandarius)

Eurasian Jay - a colourful bird

The sparrow hawk became immidiately aware of the new-comer, and kept it under close watch, and after taking off, the hawk suddenly re-appeared several times and it looked like it was not just irritated but actually considering the jay as prey despite the large size. Normally sparrow hawks go for smaller prey but this bird looked to me as if it was a female (being considerably larger than the male), and came back several times in surprise-attacks even though the smaller birds were gone and it did not look like the jay had full control over the situation.

An attack by a Sparrow Hawk goes quickly and usually happens among the branches of a tree.

The Sparrow Hawk kept the Jay under close inspection

Happy with the photo-session from the livingroom, another surprise-visit came by in the afternoon - a Three-toed Woodpecker /Tretåspett (Picoides tridactylus) - a beautiful woodpecker of the northern taiga.

Three-toed Woodpecker

Male Three-toed Woodpecker in the garden