Watching 'The Pecking Order'

I was watching 'The Pecking Order' today at Stithians southern cut-off feeding station and was quite surprised at the outcome of some of the squabbles that went on between both the different species and birds of the same group.  Like most wildlife photographers I dislike images of birds on feeders however rare or interesting they might be but I do like the opportunity of capturing action flight shots in the immediate area around them,  The image below shows a split second in time as two species of bird go head to head in a dispute over pecking rights around a hanging feeder, This shot would prove to be extremely difficult to predict and capture in totally natural surroundings but due to the volume and competitive nature of birds visiting feeders it happens on a regular basis in a predictable small area that can be concentrated on using fast continuous frame exposures.

I find the above image of a feisty little Blue Tit backing off a larger female Chaffinch quite intriguing especially then it was the Chaffinch that was initially flying towards the Blue Tit on the attack and I am now going to break my own rules by showing the lead up sequence of five images of these two birds behaviour around a nut feeder which lead up to the image shown above.


In the first image it looks like the Chaffinch will land on the opposite side of the feeder and both birds could feed away happily

But the Chaffinch looks to go around the back and the Blue Tit does not like it and starts to make a counter move

The pair meet beak to beck at the back of the feeder as the Blue Tit blocks the Chaffinch's path

The Chaffinch stalls and the Blue Tit takes the advantage and flies forward

At the peak of this action the Blue Tit steps up the aggression with her talons and beak at the ready and the chaffinch backs off in defeat leaving the 'Lion Hearted' Blue Tit to return to its nuts and with a simple crop I gain another ' Aerial Dispute Portrait'  to add to my Stithians Collection,