New Lens - New Birds

I have been patiently waiting for a new lens to arrive which it duly did today. After fitting it and making sure it worked properly I turned to the kitchen window to try it out. Of course the best laid plans.... the heavens opened, the wind blew the rain straight at the window, result - couldn't see a thing! Fortunately those clouds blew over fairly quickly, the window dried and the birds returned to the feeders. I couldn't believe my eyes. For over a year I have been trying to attract Goldfinches without luck but today that changed. One lone Goldfinch was tentatively trying out the niger seed feeder and after a few attempts it settled down to some serious eating.



Next came a Thrush which sat on the cables above the feeders with a Robin along side but as I took their photo the Robin flew off right in front of the Thrush and it also left. That was the first time I had seen a Thrush in the garden for over a year. Luckily I later spotted it amongst the branches of a tree and got my photo.



To cap that along came another bird which I have yet to identify positively. It is hard to see the top of its head but I think it could be a Goldcrest. Another fairly fuzzy photo shows a yellowish stripe right on top of its head. Here are two views of it:



It seems to have such large eyes for the size of its body.

The rest of the time I took photos of the regular visitors - Robin


Chaffinch


Rook


Starlings on the lawn


And finally another newcomer for me was a group of Crows which immediately took off as soon as I picked up the camera but I managed one shot:


I am delighted with the results from this new lens. All hand held. Quite a few are small crops from large pictures. What was I using? - the Canon 70-200mm f/4L IS USM. An image stabilised lens which has made a lot of difference to the hand held pictures taken by this wrinkly. I had read fantastic reviews of the quality of its optics written by many users so I took the plunge.