After a hard day at the office...

...I like nothing more than dashing off to Portland to photograph birds. Nick Hopper asked me what I was going to call this blog post as I stood with him and finder Joe Stockwell snapping a ridiculously co-operative Melodious Warbler at Portland Bill after work this evening. My choice of title honours a promise extracted to give him some credit for the first shot below, as the Melodious sat up and posed in response to a manful bout of pishing. Tribute thus paid, I am scraping together what little credit remains for myself for the other shots. Minus that which goes to Joe for finding it of course. And a share for the nice people at Canon, without whom none of this would have been possible.

Melodious Warbler, Portland Bill

This shot shows the shorter primary projection which helps distinguish Melodious from the similar Icterine Warbler

The upperparts are also browner compared to the more grey-green Icterine

Quite a chunky bird, it moved deliberately at times making it relatively easy to photograph

Portland wouldn't be Portland without a Wheatear

The Melodious was faithful to the same small patch of Tree Mallow throughout