Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
Sweet looking robin probably taking off.
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A fox has returned and found our re-located site 1
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This rock looks so small to us (even if it is currently stuck fast to the icy ground) but we can hardly stop ourselves thinking that the mouse is trying to push it.
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We see wagtails persuing insects in free flight, often after they have disturbed them trying to catch them on the warm slates or a wall. This is a genuine single frame.
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These wonderful agile Wagtails can hover in front of a wall and pick off flies and such.
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We first saw this Tawny Owl in Infra-red on the CCTV monitor on 'Raptor' perch. It flew off and 'disappeared' but 7 minutes later landed outside the kitchen window and stayed for about a minute. It triggered the camera just the once as it was landing - see the claws still stretched forward.
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Long after installing and removing a camera at a known thrush anvil (which got some nice images) two existing sites each took some images of a thrush with a snail. At this site we found a few snail shells round the stone.
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This site doesn't seem to have a suitable 'anvil' anywhere near.
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A surprise and delightful visit outside the living room window (unfortunately with brightly lit snow behind) of 'Mr and Mrs' Bullfinch. First the male.
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And here is his 'wife'.
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The tree trunk top camera got a lot of snow related portraits of which this Bluetit is a sample.
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The tree trunk top camera got a lot of snow related portraits of which this Robin disturbing the fresh snow is a sample.
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Humans consider 30cm of snow a 'problem'. For mice it looks like a 5cm is already too much.
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Hanging around trying to photograph a wagtail on the roof we were surprised by a fleeting flyby of this kestrel.
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While photographing the fieldfares a robin landed in conifer that partly obscures the hedge, and started singing. Here is a little impression.
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Despite the difficult lighting, this kestrel hovering in a strong wind with wings and claws all over the place had to be included. In this sequence the bird was basically stationary horizontally but gradually losing height relative to a cloud line near the top.
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Rook lands in wonderful flurry of feathers.
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An early morning visitor to the perch after overnight snow generating a lovely fall of powdery snow.
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After freezing night we often see birds with a touch of frost or snow on their feathers, but this encrustation is unusually heavy.
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Brrrr... Probably this young fieldmouse (wood mouse)'s first encounter with snow.
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Fieldmice (Wood Mice) seem to take these heavy landings in their stride.
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This wagtail seemed to like the lead (metal) gully to stand on but couldn't quite keep it's footing and kept sliding down. This is the last of a sequence over a few seconds where it slid about half a metre down the roof and finally flattened it's tail against the dry metal to stop itself.
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We are fascinated by images in water drops (all that early
philosopher/scientists had for magnifying lenses) and are always
delighted when we find a drop positioned to give a microscopic
inverted world. Genuine 'found' drop - you have to be so careful
not to bump the twig or its all gone.
This is the best of dozens of tries - you have to find a drop
with a radius of curvature that brings the drop, what it is on
and what it is imaging all into reasonable focus at once - very
much trial and error.
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A silly montage of course, to turn 'the world' right way up.
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On the undisturbed snow in the middle of our trackway something blackbird or pigeon sized left these takeoff foot and wing prints.
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You don't normally think of magpies tucking into the fruit and veg, but here is one having a good hack at an apple.
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And a couple of days before we got this messy image of a magpie carrying a carrot top in it's beak
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The chaffinch males as territorial (or hungry) as ever.
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Looks to us like a robin is guarding his heap of food and this great tit is trying a 'pop-up' approach. The shadow of the great tit particularly appeals - note how the shadow of the body is black but the shadow of the wings is much lighter as the light shines through the wings.
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The fieldmice (wood mice) are enjoying the autumn bounty.
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We noticed this carrion crow land in the thin twigs at the top of this tree and have trouble hanging on so got the camera ready and lo - it overbalanced backwards and flew off. The images are over about 1 second and are approximately correct vertically but stretched and with some repeated branches horizontally.
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Two fieldfares on the same substantially overloaded twig.
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Fieldfare flocks hang about until they have stripped the hedges and trees of hawthorn berries. We love the moment when they pluck the berry.
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Fieldfare flocks always seem to contain a few Redwing and this year was no exception. This is the Redwing (red wing not showing particularly well but the facial & breast markings are distinctive) Both birds generally 'toss' the berry back into their throats rather than manoeuvring it with the tongue.
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As the days length approached minimum and the temperature drops kestrels need to hunt more intensively. Here a female is perched on a hedge top twig that is bending under her weight.
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But she started off on her favourite perch on the high voltage wires watching for a minute or two, moving a few 10s of metres and so on for hundreds of metres. A lot less effort than all this hovering stuff (though she does it perfectly well). We have deleted the brutallic wires bottom left to better enjoy the bird.
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Dashing around to find a place where this magpie was centred on the moon before the bird flew or the moon moved too much was for once successful. Genuine single frame.
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Fieldfares are a regular delight this time of year, though they are very nervous birds that it is very hard to get close to. So one flying past (as opposed to 'away') is a nice bonus. Here 2 successive frames are montaged, mirrored to give a 'left to right' feel, but the positions are for appearance rather than accuracy - the bland blue sky provides nothing to register the images against.
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A little joy for the start of a new year - may it rub off on you all.
There didn't seem to be any target for the song - maybe a little
joie-de-vie brought about by the opportunity to get a full crop!
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