I'd spoken with Ian Grant the previous day and we both had reservations based on the 'rumours' about it's origin? With the morning starting to tick by, we both decided there was no evidence it wasn't a tickable bird and eventually hit the road...
We got parked immediately in the nearby 'pay and display' and after the 5 minutes walk to the residential area, it was showing on arrival!! And just in case I give the mistaken idea that it strutted feather detail to order, this was the sort of view it gave for the vast majority of the time...
"It's flying"; a frequent cry...
... and good news when it chose to perch lower down :-)
It took over an hour before my angst at only securing record shots turned to a smile as it posed low down on the first storey of this house!
And the blue plumage seemed to shine even brighter when not against the sky - even gutter worked nicely!
Nearly all of these images are from a magic couple of minutes when it showed it's socks or should I say clean feet off - no evidence of cage damage...
The was the closest approach and I remember thinking - it's going to fly?
And fly it did, but not out of view, landing on top of one of the driveway conifers less than 10m away!!
It didn't stay there for long and I wasn't the only one to get this amazing view :-)
Initially thought to be (by some) to be a presumed escape, it's an adult male - looking the business and I'm soooo glad we made the effort... 'whatever'...
