Garden birds – photographed through the window

It’s not ideal but sometimes you have to just make the best of what you have got. Just recently that has meant grabbing some shots of birds (particularly Goldfinches) from behind glass, the glass in this case being our kitchen window and a window that looks out onto our garden.

From a photography point of view it’s really not at all ideal, the reflections and the extra layer of glass make it that little bit harder to capture decent pictures – but the pictures in the gallery below are the best that I have been able to manage on a couple of recent occasions when we have been visited by delightful goldfinches.

What a pretty bird

The goldfinch really is a pretty bird and is unmistakable with it’s bight flashes of yellow. The goldfinches in the pictures are male, this is determined by the bright red patch on the head which is larger than on the female as are the yellow wing markings… but if you think I am wrong please let me know and help me improve my knowledge.

Although goldfinches eat seeds, dandelions and thistles they also add to their diet with insects when it’s time to feed their babies, Feeders with Niger seeds and sunflower hearts are good to draw them into the garden – and it’s with the Niger seeds and sunflower hearts that we seem to have had recent success.

Common in the UK

The goldfinch is a pretty common bird in the UK and the RSPB estimate that there are over 300,000 breeding pairs in the UK, although if it’s a particularly harsh winter many of them will migrate south, in fact they will migrate as far south as Spain.

Picture gallery

Clicking on any of the images below will open a picture gallery that you can click or scroll through, and although mainly pictures of the goldfinch you’ll spot a couple of other garden visitors in the picture gallery as well.