Birds birds birds

So, here is my final post with photos taken while on holiday home to Finland. After this there will be updates from the studio and my new life in Shanghai ;)

We have been rather busy here the last 2 weeks. We spent one week back in Rizhao, and this week I've been running around the city trying to find a Christmas ham, painted and, um… ok, maybe I haven't been that busy this week. The days flies past so fast! 

But as the title of this post suggest, today I will give you Birds! I tried to get as many photos as possible with birds on my trip home so that I would get new reference material for painting. Unfortunately I was home quite late in the autumn this time so most of the birds had migrated south already. But I got a few good shots, and below are some of them. 

Blue tit. I was amazed at how aggressive these little feather balls were. They sounded like angry cats and chased the other bigger birds away when they wanted to feed, even if there would have been space for all of them. Small but feisty!!

Great tit. 

Great tits and an Eurasian tree sparrow.

A flock of geese traveling south for the winter.

Great blue Heron.

Herring gull, I think.

Ok, this was fun to watch! We have had a pair of White-tailed eagles feeding their young on the island opposite our summer cottage this summer. I got to see the adults a few times flying to and from the Island on a distance. Then this one day when one of the adult eagles came back 'home', it was chased by a crow. I have seen different kinds of gulls and ravens chase the eagle as well, but this time it was the crow. Who needs television when you get to watch drama in nature firsthand like this?

This was a dazed European Robin that my brother rescued from their cat. She did not get it for dinner this time. While it was recovering I took the camera and got quite a few nice shots of it. First it didn't mind me being close, but then when it recovered more it flew away. Unfortunately it flew the wrong way and into the window. So the second time I actually picked it up and brought it to some trees and put it on a branch so that the cat couldn't get to it and far away from any windows. After a few minutes there it flew back into the forest.

Eurasian tree sparrow.

Mute swan. I happened to sit on the pier with my camera trying to get some pictures of an unidentified small bird when a pair of swans flew right past me. Lucky me!!

Mute swan.

Mute swan.

Great tit.

White wagtail.

White wagtail.

So, as you can imagine there will be a lot more bird paintings coming up!!!