The Splits

Over the course of some bright and calm July mornings I had a number of opportunities to photograph Bearded Tits (Panurus biarmicus) at Cley next the Sea, Norfolk. Each morning I returned to the same reed bed and listened out for their distinctive pinging call. Sometimes I would only hear these iconic little reedlings or catch a fleeting glimpse of juveniles as they flitted from reed to reed. On a few lucky occasions they would gather in a small family group, close enough to photograph, and climb to the tops of the reed to feed. On this occasion they were joined by an adult male who struck a classic pose by doing the splits between two old stalks of reed. The main challenge was capturing clean images when the birds were not obscured by the reeds or their shadows.