St Giles in the centre of Oxford

The National Museum and King Wenceslas statue at one end of Wencesas Square (actually a long and narrow rectangle) in Prague.

On a chilly day the sensible meerkats get under the heat lamp.

It looks like it's wearing one of those fake fur coats from the '70s.

My new phone can do pretty well at night, the BP garage in Hendon.

When I parked my car at a local restaurant recently, I noticed the ants were having a field day in this small gum tree. Don't ask me what species it is because botany isn't my forte, but I think it might be a red flowering gum, Eucalyptus ficifolia, also known as Corymbia ficifolia, depending upon which school of classification you subscribe to.

The sun starting to break through the clouds over Omapere and the coastline of Hokianga Harbour.

Who knew they came in such colours?

Wow,Sue, that is indeed an amazing colour!

It is certainly amazing!

Here's Precious this afternoon, wondering why there is cold, white, icy stuff on the ground when it is supposed to be Spring!

I never cease to be amazed at what a 'poser' Precious is! Another great shot!

Cape Egmont Lighthouse in Taranaki by the Tasman Sea. Unfortunately I could not take a photo looking in the opposite direction with the volcano, Mt Taranaki, in the background as we could not see any of the volcano due to cloud cover.

I wonder if the censorbot will let me tell you what this is? It's a Blue Tit, okay? It's a bird!

Yes and it's beautiful, especially to someone like me who never sees them .

They are pretty aren't they? There were two of them in the forsythia but the other one didn't sit still for an instant. For the sake of the uninitiated perhaps I should say that blue tits measure about 4-5 inches from top of head to end of tail so they're quite tiny.

They remind me of our blue wrens -

Ooh, how pretty. Our wrens are that shape but just brown all over.

A large thatched house in Long Crendon, Bucks

There is something magic about blue birds. Every region seems to have special ones. Look at the Hyacinth Macaw. Lovely!

Hyacinth Macaw

I love the satin bower bird:

http://www.mdahlem.net/birds/23/satbower.php

What beautiful blue birds - all of them. I'll try to snap a blue jay the next time one shows up in my yard.

Meanwhile, this chap was posing on my deck this afternoon. The fuzziness is due to shooting through a screened window.

You often see blue wrens in tourist spots because they've learned that the tourists will feed them. They will come up quite close to you but won't get too close, and they are as quick as greased lightning if you tried to catch one. If you are at a picnic table, they'll land on the table and help themselves to any crumbs.

Our robins are like your wrens - they can get very tame and they certainly use humans as a mechanism for getting food. They will perch nearby as you dig the garden so they can grab any worms they see and when I say "nearby" I mean they'll watch from the fence or even perch on the bit of the fork/spade you haven't got your foot on. Mine sit on the buddleia or viburnum waiting for me to add suet bits to the food - they'll eat the rest but if I forget the suet their displeasure is quite apparent.

The picture below is one of them on the buddleia yesterday. No way of knowing if this is the male or female - they both look the same. About 5-6 inches long - same size as your blue wren. Our wrens are smaller, about 3-4 inches; there are wrens in the garden but they don't stop still long enough to photograph. They're noisy little birds though - the RSPB has an audio of one here. When the robins and wrens all sing in the morning it can be very loud!

Just spent ages at the Rospa site. Thanks It is lovely.