How we doing folks? In this one I’m basically admitting defeat on the original plan. The scaffold hide I put up for the redwings did work… sort of… but the weather turned proper snotty, the light was bobbins, and by the time I’d had a few half-decent sessions the holly had been absolutely snaffled. With the berries gone and the bullfinches not showing their faces, there was no point leaving the tower where it was, so I took the whole lot down and shifted it to a nearby holly bush that was still loaded. I rebuilt the elevated hide about 8–9 metres off the target, checked the levels, and made sure it wasn’t going to sink into the ground. Then reality kicked in: low winter sun right in my face at dinner time, so I ended up waiting until about 2pm when it slid round. I started off thinking I’d kneel, but after 20 minutes I had complete paralysis below the waist, so the chair went up (plus a bit more scaffolding for safety, because I’m not doing a triple-sour into the trailer). I was shooting wide open at a minimum of 1/1000s around ISO 2200 to try and freeze that “berry airborne” moment—no redwing did it for me this time, but a female blackbird absolutely delivered the shot I had in my head.