A Very Bizarre Experience with a Wren.

I got up at 7.ooam on Sunday as the sun was coming into my room and I thought I would head out to Killard with my dog "Pickle" and my camera. It was a fantastic autumn morning with strong sunlight and clear blue sky. When I got there everything was singing. There seemed to be large numbers of Skylarks which have recently arrived and there were Linnets everywhere as well as Goldfinches and Meadow Pipits.

I initially just walked as there was no bird coming close enough to photograph until I came across some Wrens singing.I have to say I love the Wren. It is one of our most common birds and one of the smallest. (Not quite as small as the Goldcrest but close) I think it is reckoned there are around 8.5 million breeding pairs. Also for a bird of its size it has a remarkably loud song. I find Wrens one of the hardest birds to photograph and until this day have only one not very good image of a wren sitting on a barbed wire fence. The moment you focus on them they seem to move and one can rarely get one with a clean background.Today I was lucky I had the really bright sun behind me so I was even getting a catchlight in the eye. The catchlight is very important in bird photography in my opinion and can often make or break a photograph.


Well I took loads of photos of it before continuing on my circuit around Killard. I saw for about the third day running a Merlin,which I cannot get close enough to photograph as well as the solitary Grey Plover which has spent the last four winters here. I then headed home.

Now for the Bizarre bit!!!!Forward to yesterday: After I returned from work I was having a look at the photos on my computer of the Wren and going delete delete delete as one after the other was either out of focus or had a stick in front of it or it didn't have a catchlight or the head angle was wrong. As I was processing the three reasonable images on Adobe Lightroom I heard a Wren singing right next to me. My first thought was that my bird recordings on my itunes had suddenly switched on, then the song sounded again slightly to my left and I wondered whether birding had gone to my head and I was going mad. Then I looked down on the floor and blow me there was a wren sitting and singing on the floor right beside me. As I moved it flew back out into the kitchen and out through the open dogflap!!!!!!