Birds ...and sometimes other pictures

Cracking open a peanut isn’t as easy as the adult crows make it look. A young crow has to learn how to do it first. Here, the father has already cracked the peanut halfway open, and the young one took a few minutes to get the rest of the nut out of its shell.

Just a meadow pipit on a fence post on a foggy day.

Same duck family as in my last post. The difference is three and a half weeks. But they still come up to me and are very curious. And yes you can hear me in the video because I've gotten bitten in the finger by one of the ducklings. It doesn't really hurt, but they really wanted to eat my fingers.

Ducklings grow fast by the way. I will post another video in a second to show that.

Approaching cranes.

When Dad has a snack, but doesn't give it to you.

For my crows the molt is starting as you can see with this female crow. It is an especially challenging time as molting costs a lot of energy and their are still demanding youngsters that want to be fed and want to learn how to be a proper crow.

During my trip at the North Sea I was lucky to encounter a family of bearded reedlings. It wasn't easy to take good pictures, because they really like to be in the depth of reeds and then they always seem to be on the move, rarely stopping. But I've managed to get some pictures after several outings, so I present the mother first, then some of the kids and the father at the end.

Portrait session with a Northern lapwing.

Baby crow in a puddle.

Taking pictures of flying birds can be a challenge, especially if they are of the faster kind like these house martins.

The reason the little blue tit is angry is quite simple. I was on their balcony. Well, technically it is my balcony, but the blue tits nested in the nest box that I have installed and of course that means it was their balcony from the moment they have chosen the nest box as theirs. But don't worry, we eventually agreed on shared usage.

Hungryyyyyy!

The white feathers are due leucism, a genetic variation that leads to feathers without the black pigments.

Although these pictures were taken in Portugal last year, they are very fitting for today's heat.