Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
On 17 Dec 2008 we showed you a rabbit and mouse with the comment
'Obviously rabbits are not frightened of mice,
unlike the proverbial Elephant.'
However looking at this image maybe its not true for all rabbits.
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Another mini-feast for the robin.
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We haven't shown you a Great Tit for 6 months, and this one put in a nice appearance.
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The chilly weather doesn't seem to reduce the fieldmouse (wood mouse) ardour. Its 3:26 a.m. as well!
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As we walked down to the corner of the plot this bright green display in the sunshine caught our eye, so we have tried to capture the un-seasonal green.
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The moons elliptical orbit brings changes in it's distance, and we hear that this cycle brought the closest (therefore largest) full moon for 13yrs. Not that we knew this when we photographed it at 3:11 p.m. - it just looked appealing hanging in the sky.
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A little Christmas day special.
This year has been exceptional for Dragonflies and Raptors,
so here is a little montage of birds:-
| Osprey | Skylark | Red Kite |
| Tawny Owls | ||
| Short-eared Owl | Little Owl | Sparrowhawk |
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Give a bird a bit of rough rendering and the more agile will happily walk straight up a vertical wall.
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A few minutes after yesterdays crow & buzzard montage the buzzard came back. Despite the air temperature of about 5C it was sunny and it was rising slowly in a thermal over the South sloping field to our North. We were quite surprised that this near the winter solstice even the midday sun had this much heating effect.
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This montage shows a buzzard being chased away from our patch by a one of a pair of carrion crows that have bred here for the last 2 years. Images are left to right over a second or two. Shortly afterwards (out of photographic range) the buzzard turned the tables and the crow took refuge in a distant tree.
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Awful quality in shade in the half dark through a window, this male muntjac deer spent a couple of minutes trying to down this windfall apple, but he did succeed.
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Flocks of fieldfares are about but very wary of humans, so we were lucky to get close enough to this one 'out in the open' to catch it departing.
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Although a little blurred by movement and distance the acrobatics of this little fellow could not be resisted.
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As the robin takes off some corn grains and a fallen leaf go flying as well.
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Obviously rabbits are not frightened of mice, unlike the proverbial Elephant. (But see also the image for 31 Dec 2008.)
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A little owl stopped for a few minutes on this perch, which spurred us to set up a pre-focussed flash configuration at an openable window in the hope of catching the next image. In one of those 'it never happens' moments the same evening a pair of tawny owls showed up and the new kit worked! The 'red eye' effect is the same as in human pics the flash is close to the camera - we decided not to tamper with the images.
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A pair! The Tawny owl box has been up for a year - all we can do is hope and wait.
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The same bird as yesterday spent a minute or two on a road sign right next to the road with lorries etc. going by only 3m or so away. These images were taken through a less dense patch in the track-side hedge. We lost sight of him the moment he flew.
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A Kestrel flew about overhead. No doubt any mice out of their holes bolted to cover.
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A biting north wind limited the birds and us to short forays. The birds were all trying to keep near the ground - even the corvids. This sparrowhawk swooped by us skimming over the ground so close to it that it's shadow is only just offset.
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The apple and mouse make an interesting juxtaposition and show up the whiskers.
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Ear-Ear (sorry)
We never know what is going to go down well, and we only included
this in our weekly assortment email on a whim. But we got enough
feedback that we thought we would include it here as well.
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A little domestic contentment in the Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) family.
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A few weeks ago Redwings and Fieldfare arrived together but we mostly saw Redwings. The balance of Fieldfares to Redwings has been restored to its usual 10:1 in favour of Fieldfares. Here a fieldfare visits at dusk.
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At sunset the puffy white clouds over the whole sky turned to candy-floss pink. This is pretty much the sky and cloud colours we both remember.
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A very late appearance of a Red Admiral butterfly enjoying the sunshine on a flowering Viburnum. It might be the one we raised indoors, but really don't know as we didn't mark it - see the archive for 3 Nov 2008.
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The Jays made another afternoon appearance. They are so photogenic we couldn't resist another, this time a portrait. Note the haze of feather over some of the blue.
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This Kestrel went down in the grass and lost site of it. When it took off and we picked it up in the camera just as it was pulling a piece of the prey from it's talon. The pictures are sequenced top right to bottom left. In the last it still has some left in its talon, and it went on to eat that a few second later.
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Not often you manage to appreciate the lovely sheen on a rook.
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Did we say something to upset you?
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Apparently not. The red fruit comes from an ancient apple tree in part of the original garden.
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Continuing our selection from the 'Day of the Jays', first both of the pair (the bird on the right's beak tip was just out of frame)
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... and here one about to launch into the air.
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During the walk that flushed the Short eared owl, we photographed almost the whole East boundary of our patch. The tall poplar at the back line the track down the West boundary.ÿ You can see the 'double hedge' - the taller one the one we planted and the shorter one the Blackthorn sprouts along the barbed wire and pig-net fence that grew without asking first. We fight to maintain walking & maintenance clearance between the two and a view over the top! The slope is real - not a wide angle lens artifact.
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