Long Tailed Bushtits in the bushes
I’m looking over the beautiful green treetops and palm-tops in Parco Villa Gregoriana in Tivoli:
There’s a flock of Long Tailed Tits Aegithalos caudatus passing through. I first saw them over 40 years ago and noted it down in my nature notebooks:
They’re interesting birds because they never stay in one place for very long; they’re constantly on the move. That’s a problem for me as I haven’t got my telephoto lens on. I can hear them long before I can see them, going ‘tsurp tsurp’ in the treetops.
I dump my bag, get out the telephoto, remove my current lens, swap the lenses on the camera body, place the rear cap back on the unused lens and focus. Yes!
I manage to get a photo:
And then another.
And then they’re gone.