This bird was a lifer for me in Cyprus, and I think I ended up seeing around 20 in all, usually in pairs. The best place I found for them was at a place called Oriklini Marsh, which has a couple of raised hides. One wasn't yet completed at the time of my visit in late March, but the other was fully open and slightly larger, and can be found at the northern end of the site right next to the motorway slipway. There were at least 6 of these bird present on my second visit just before I had to leave for home, and one pair (I assume) were commuting between the marsh and a crop field on the other side of the road. I scoped them out for a bit, but what wasn't apparent until I saw them in flight - and indeed I only noticed this on the back of the camera - is that they do indeed have spurs on their wings! When one pair took flight to go over to the field I dashed down the steps of the hide to open ground and caught a bird as it came over relatively low, and this image shows those spurs. I don't know if they are actually used or serve any kind of purpose - might have to do some reading on that, but check them out!

This was possibly the most numerous bird that I saw in Cyprus - at the Cape Greco area they were literally everywhere, particularly on the cliffs, and their default behaviour, other than making an absolute racket (far more so than Red-legged Partridge here which I rarely hear) was to fly off a great distance, usually in an enormous arc. I hadn't taken a scope, so only once did I get decent views of a bird and that was from the car. I found that I could drive by and the birds took no notice, but of course the moment the car rolled to a stop, the bird was off! I had just enough time to snap this out of the window before the bird went off behind a ridge - running, not flying, and I quite like the sense of movement from the photo as it's not something I often manage to get. This was another new bird for me, though not high on the list of targets - as mentioned that was the Wheatear - would that we had regular birds in this country, or at least down south. The passage this year has been very poor so far on the patch, I've barely seen ten individuals. I hope it isn't over, but there is always the autumn.

I've never taken a decent photograph of a Nuthatch, which is really amazing as they can be such friendly little birds. I was out yesterday twitching the Two-barred Crossbill at Lynford, but I quickly tired of that when I realised that there were loads of Nuthatch everywhere. Abandoning the rarity, I started trying to get some pleasing shots, which meant setting up for clean backgrounds and so on, and altering my height to make that possible. The biggest challenge was the light, and a slow lens with only a monopod for support, which meant I was really struggling with shutter speeds of around 1/200s to 1/320s. I have a theory though that in some instances, camera shake can be eliminated a slow speeds simply by taking a long series of shots - almost inevitably one in a series can somehow defy the odds and be acceptably sharp, if not blisteringly so. And actually this is what happened, some of them are absolutely fine despite the support - I guess that the 4-stop IS is playing its part here. As I've said many times, I prefer a monopod over a tripod for the flexibility it gives and the huge weight saving, and it would seem that in many circumstances it isn't actually needed, and the gains are marginal.

Although I like the trunks, I decided to mix things up by finding a couple of perches, one of which was a mossy branch that I placed at the bottom of a trunk. Pretty soon a bird came in and started coming around and down the trunk - they seemed to work one tree and then the next in a relatively predictable order. I was using the 800mm, and so was able to keep my distance. I held my breath as the bird came along the series of trunks, and then it was on mine! The first time it proceeded to the next trunk but skipped the perch, but the next time it came around it went along the perch, and spent some time hopping around the floor. 

I took around 300 images, and have managed to get quite a few keepers from the morning. The best are from the perch, even if it's not the classic Nuthatch image vertically down a trunk. I'll definitely be going back as it seems that are are quite a few possibilities, (including Treecreepers) and if I take a lens that lets in more light (as well as a tripod perhaps, for additional secuity!), I'll likely come back with some even better results. Still, not bad for a first attempt, and more interesting than a bunch of Crossbills up in a high tree! Here are a selection of the best from that short spell yesterday, including two at the ned from the perch - I must try and find a twig that isn't as obviously snapped at the end!