Looking forward from backwards

It's about this time each year I start to make the plans I then fail to keep.  2016 was going to be foxes, badgers, grebes and little owls ........... and maybe hawfinch or two if I was lucky.  I did get a few fox snaps, and was pleased with a least one badger snap - one for a later post.  There was only one grebe  on the estate lake and the little owl location turned out to be too challenging for the limited hours I have. 
In the end I spent more time at our 'near woodland' puddle on a table - good fun and a reasonable range of birds.  The light can be tricky as in any woodland, and I even tried a bit of flash at times (more practise needed there). The other challenge is lens selection. When the birds vary in size from goldcrest to pheasant there is no halfway house.  I tried the 100-400 II, but the bokeh wasn't enough for the woodland background.
Some snaps I haven't posted before below:

 

 The flash does need more work although I quite liked this ghost robin shot.

The weather hasn't added much this year - a couple of snaps in the ice but I think I needed a higher angle to show it better.  The woodpecker ignored the thawed area and just pecked and licked the ice.

The treecreeper provided a favourite snap as it hid from a magpie, whilst it was also the subject of the most disappointing - I have snapped one bathing before but this just didn't quite work.

Actually in truth it wasn't the most disappointing - one morning after snapping the woodpecker nest I went to the wood and poked the lens out the window. Seconds later with nothing set up properly I saw my hawfinch - a female in our own little wood - and I duffed the single snap I took!