Red Cheeked Starlings in the cherry blossoms

Some male Red Cheeked Starlings in Goryokaku Park.

I spent the last couple of mornings watching a small colony of Red Cheeked Starlings in a very handy location in the main park in town and despite the crowds I got some nice pictures.............

The cherry blossoms were rather late this year and perhaps in most springs this scene doesn't happen so often...............

As you can see the females are a little dull by comparison but they still have their charms............

But most of the time I was concentrating on the males......

I took lots of shots..................................occasionally they did something a little interesting.........

They were nestbuilding...............

A very photogenic bird you have to admit..................

My wife had found the tree with these Starlings on Saturday. We could stand on the old ramparts (the park used to be a fort) and look at the tree top at more or less eye level.

On the day my wife found them there were lots of White-eyes in the park but by the time I got there on Sunday most had gone and I didn't get any shots. 

This morning I was very surprised to see 3 Grey Tailed Tattlers in the park flying around the moat looking for somewhere to land................I couldn't get a photo of them though.

The light was very good, the sun was behind me and I was down at ISO 200 or even 100 most of the time.

When they left the trees I couldn't afford such luxuries.........

Thanks for clicking this link.

The last post's pics may look a little odd because I forgot to change the colour profile to sRGB. On some browsers/monitors the colours will appear dull and washed out.............I'm a tad lazy and I can't be a***d to go back and change it now..................