Lockdown photography

I'm missing bird photography. I don't usually do much in the UK, and especially not locally - there is very little point. Instead I tend to get my fix on trips away, but as all of those have been cancelled I have found myself rather at a loss during lockdown. I've been following the guidelines on leaving the house quite strictly. A couple of walks, a tiny amount of early morning birding, no piss-taking. That has also meant that my camera continues to lie idle - I don't want to get called out toting a large lens around Wanstead Flats; I'm pretty sure that bird photography wouldn't be deemed as essential.

Instead I've had my camera close at hand for lockdown listing, trying to get shots of every species I've seen. Largely this has been completely unsatisfactory - crappy record shots of distant Red Kites and Buzzards and so on, or of garden birds obscured by foliage. In other words the kind of photos I loathe. Opportunities for anything better have been few and far between, but there have been a few occasions where a hint of what I am after has managed to creep in. There are only two natural perches within range that [just about] meet my requirements for a clean background, and only one of them is close enough for a small bird to be worth bothering with - but because it is quite close to a large human standing on a balcony, birds seem to visit it very infrequently. And then there is a chimney pot....

Here are three that I took this morning from my balcony. The local Wren, one of our many Ring-necked Parakeets, and finally an amorous Woodpigeon.