Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
One of the female Mallard ducks has made a nest in the Daffodils on an island. This image from the bank shows her head to the left (eye peeping between 2 fronds). We found her by knowing Mallard ducks like to nest there, and will leave her alone - the island is 'off limits' for a few weeks!
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We bought the least expensive Thermal camera we could find to help us find nests. This is the thermal image (rather wider angle than the cropped natural image) of a concealed Mallard duck nest from maybe 8 metres away, highlighting her presence very well.
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This is a detail of the lovely catkins that form on Black poplar trees. They fall long before the leaves emerge. Black Poplar are either male or female - ours and possibly all that are left are males - the females are said to smell badly at times of the year and were not planted. We propagated ours by cuttings from fallen branches, although this is a low branch on a tree planted about 1938.
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We are surrounded by robins - this one sat on a branch a few metres away and sang to us (or more likely the other robins!)
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As we arrived at the pond the female mallard duck hauled out on the bank to have a good preen, while he continued to have what seemed like a wonderful time 'in the bath'.
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Extasy?
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She took no notice of all the splashing about, quietly working through her down, contour and flight feathers
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We haven't identified this Bumble Bee, but love the dusting of pollen from the willow catkin.
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This is a male Brimstone Butterfly fueling up from one of a number of Winter flowering Viburnum.
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A pair of Mallard flying in to a pond to the right as a reasonably accurate montage at 7 fps. You can see she was overtaking him - quite normal - she says where they go!
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We have often commented on the quiet co-existence of pheasants with rooks & jackdaws. Several times now we have seen the same with the mallard ducks. Far more Mallard activity this year - no moorhen are about to harass them!
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One of our Tree Sparrows elegantly descending to the perch
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This House Sparrow was first spotted having an altercation with a Tit near the hole in the roof used by the Starlings. We hope this declining species will nest somewhere here.
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Long-tailed tits are very nervous birds and its a challenge to photograph them when we are 'out and about', as here.
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The cherry blossom is all over the plot. We find it difficult to capture the feeling 'in the mass' so here is a little detail to delight.
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4 days later the Tawny owl visited again, this time around 1 a.m., photographing itself twice, first landing and then jumping down onto the perch with it's back to us. The 2 images are montaged together.
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We spotted this lovely Tawny owl land on the top of the peanut feeder on an IR CCTV (Infra-red lit Closed Circuit TV 'security' camera) but it missed the IR trigger beam so a creep through the dark to the camera allowed several manually triggered photos.
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The dry ground allows the log to get rolled about by the bigger birds and animals. Here one end is as high as you can get it - so that is the end this mouse decides to clamber up!
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Surprise of the week was this Snipe making a perhaps 30 minute visit
to the grass around. and banks of, the main pond.
How do you preen with a beak half of your body length?
Very nicely apparently.
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Worms are definitely on the menu! This is 3 successive frames as it manoeuvred a worm down its long beak
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Surprise of the week was this Snipe making a perhaps 30 minute visit
to the grass around. and banks of, the main pond.
Here is a selection of images, all through window glass for fear of
disturbing the visitor.
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This pair of montaged images shows that the bird uses all of the beak when it needs to.
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A female Mallard duck showing the signs of her 'boyfriend's affections' on the nape of her neck where he has gripped her while having his 'evil' ways with her.
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Perhaps the 'culprit' of the females feather loss - an accurate montage of a male mallard climbing steeply from take-off. This was probably at 7fps.
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Spring has brought out the daffodils - little 'sunshines' on the island of 'Round Pond'
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Our 20 year old boundary barbed wire and net fences are mostly overgrown with self-set Blackthorn, but one corner has self-set with a 5 metre length around the corner post of what is probably wild cherry. The Cherry wins the race to first flowering every year.
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The Chaffinch and Robin seem to share about the same level of aggression and are often seen squabbling over access to the feeding sites.
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2 frames and 10 minutes apart this pair of mallard ducks (almost) made a perfect pairing face to face. We often see them from a distance like this, but one will always have triggered the camera before the other arrive, so we don't get the joint photo
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Through the kitchen window, a female mallard duck head down in the mud feeding (what else) as the male watches the world - and her.
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Whoosh - 11 of 30 images at 7 fps (frames per
second)accurately montaged.
This male Mallard duck is aerobraking to drop into a pond - you
can see that he about halved his speed in the course of the 1.5
seconds this shows. This sequence stops several metres above the ground and pond.
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A closer view of the last 5 from above
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A really close view of the 5th from the right of the 11 image montage.
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Each day we place food at various sites as 'bait'. At some times of the
year the Rooks and sometimes jackdaws turn up around our standard time
and squabble over access.
First a Rook arriving at the top of a baited post top -
the images would have overlapped so are spread horizontally.
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Displaced! A succession of these change-overs take place until all the easy pickings have gone.
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The Barn owl spends a few minutes on this post early evening perhaps
twice a week. It stayed unusually long this time - 12 minutes and stayed frozen
in this position long enough to get this nice portrait by diffuse moonlight.
Technical: 600mm lens & 1.4x converter, F5.6, 8 Seconds, ISO 6400, pre-focussed in
daytime & through window glass.
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We have started seeing 2 male Great Spotted Woodpeckers at once, often squabbling if they see each other.
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This is one of them exploring the crevices of a post in the meadow.
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The male Kestrel has started to make the odd visit in the day, but is usually immediately seen off by one of the many aggressive Rooks. But he also sometimes appears just as it is getting dark and the corvids (crows & like) have gone but he can still see well enough. He likes the top of our nearest concrete mains power pole, and stays for a few minutes.
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A chance grouping of 5 starlings on the perch next to one of the peanut feeders. It is interesting to see the number of different breast feather variations.
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Togetherness, Mallard duck style ...
This is the standard position we see this pair taking day after
day - her feeding and him 'guarding' - well keeping her close anyway!
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A Mallard duck female circling the plot waiting for the 2-legs (us!) to 'vanish'
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One of the buzzards flew over us viewed through the branches of a Black poplar tree on our access track.
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One of the 5 buzzards we sometimes see together climbing in the thermals flew by against the trees, giving the opportunity for an accurately spaced montage at about 7 fps. So this is about 1 second of flight.
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Within the same minute a Rook challenged the buzzard which looked up at the rook with some disdain before flying on.
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The Magpie looks so innocent, but Magpies really are the local garbage collectors - the only bird or animal in our experience that will carry off an already dead mouse. Note the top half of the legs covered by little cylinders of rich brown feathers
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3 stages of the Springtime development of the blue coating on
male Chaffinches' beaks. 3 different birds showing the coating
growing from the base of the beak to the tip and edges.
Here the blue coating well clear of the edges & tip.
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The blue coating has almost reached the tip of the beak.
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The intense blue coating covers this bird's whole beak.
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Over about an hour the mice stripped this raw corn cob of all its kernels. But we have no idea what is going on here - an untouched single frame for 'April Fools Days' but genuine.
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