Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
A female Emperor Dragonfly facing us as she lays eggs on the underwater vegetation. Who is watching who?
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Here we accidentally caught a moment of flight between patches of the pond weeds where she was laying.
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We had about 5 minutes watching this Emperor Dragonfly placing her eggs on to sub-surface vegetation before she unexpectedly flew off. In this image you can see the last few abdominal segments under water along with her Claspers (Anal Appendages).
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A couple of rooks look like are having a 'disagreement'. (This is the whole camera frame)
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The same bird about 1 second apart - it is amazing how incident light changes appearance.
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5 minutes later it had caught something in the wheat crop and took it to the top of a now disused concrete electricity pole to consume. It took about 5 minutes to eat whatever it was.
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Shortly after midnight on 2 successive nights a Short-tailed Field Vole and then a Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) inspects a slug.
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An hour before the Field Vole visited the stone there was quite a variety of slugs 'radulating' their way through whatever was smeared on the stone.
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A pair of female Great Spotted Woodpeckers disputing access to the feeder. This is a single exposure - no tricks.
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The symmetry tickled our fancy enough to see what it looked like inverted. So here it is - the Iris fronds in the background and the lighting are 'wrong', but would you have noticed if we only presented this one?
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Our first Comma butterfly this year. Until recent years we only saw these in the Autumn feasting on the juice of squashed windfall apples.
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A Black headed gull starting to moult back from a single black mark on his cheek into the plumage that gives him his name.
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6 days later several hundred Black headed gulls flew over in about 15 minutes in all stages of moult. This bird with fully developed head plumage (actually 'chocolate' colour rather than black) was too busy scratching the side of his beak with his left foot to notice the photographer. This is just before the foot reached the beak.
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"I've got 2 red feathers!"
One of this years more advanced young Robins from this year bumper 'crop'.
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'Reynard' pays another evening call as the day turns to night.
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The damp plumage on this lovely male pheasant helps show up the individual feathers.
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The birds don't care what an eyesore the overhead 11kV electrics have become - to them it is just a convenient place to perch.
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A single frame showing the visitors who climb up the metre to the top of the tree-stump after a shower on a mild night. There is probably a feast of food particles and peanut butter caught in the cracks.
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The juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker seems determined to see off the squirrel, but it won't succeed.
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The Squirrel is not always there, and all of the juvenile Great Spotted Woodpeckers have learned how to use this tough but accessible peanut feeder.
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We think this must be our unusual male Kestrel (with lightly barred tail) finally moulting to proper male colours as you can see from his messy tail.
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We photograph lots of insect catchers in flight, and sometimes get lucky with an insect capture. The dot in the front of the middle bird is an insect that appeared in the first 2 images, but not in the last (on the left). Positioned as accurately as is possible.
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Male chaffinches seem incapable of meeting without squabbling. This is one of the birds fluttering over his rival.
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This is a wider angle including the second bird cowering on the ground but calling anyway.
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One of 'our' foxes produced this one-off image nicely side on and fitting in the frame apart from an ear tip.
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We first spotted this male pheasant crouching in the grass along the edge of the wheat crop, but it soon realised we were not going away, so he walked along the edge of the crop to one of the sprayer tractor's wheel ruts, and 'vanished' into the crop.
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"Woodpeckers - The Face-off"
We have 2 families of Great Spotted Woodpecker that both consider
this perch and associated peanut feeders to belong to them!
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A juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker still thinks it can outwit the Grey Squirrel - the adults long ago learned better.
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A male chaffinch launches from the stone, probably unrelated to the Dunnock shouting at him.
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Our 'tree-rats' (Grey Squirrels) look so cuddly.
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Periods of quiet feeding often erupt into endless chases.
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A sequence of a Wren singing near the house taken over about 1 minute. Start bottom left.
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The photo sites have only recorded Bullfinches in the last couple of years. This is a male who put in a partial appearance 2 days before.
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At about 10 p.m. (& again a few hours later during the same night) this Fox, with crystal-clear eyes, was gazing at the ground.
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Dragonfly species change dramatically during their lives - you really need a whole book on the subject to work out what is what. Despite the colour this is a young male Common Blue damselfly. You don't need a book to enjoy them though!
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A buzzing in the grass led us to this little encounter between what we thought was two rather slim bumble-bees. But one of our weekly assortment readers quickly told us that these are Hover-flies Volucella bombylans which mimic and parasitise bumble-bees. The yellow specks are pollen grains.
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A Wood Pigeon assessing the apple?
"Is it worth a peck?"
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A young fox visiting site 2, gazing upwards at what looks like roughly the direction to the flashgun. Maybe it can hear a miniscule hum or (ultrasonic) whistle.
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To put it in context, here is the untouched (except reduced size) camera original.
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Left to right 13 minutes and then 12 hours apart, despite what the background sky might indicate. Grey Squirrels keep visiting known 'good' sites many times a day.
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A less angelic side of Grey Squirrel behaviour. We hope juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker stops these close encounters before it gets one of those sharp claws somewhere vital.
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"How do you get into this damn thing?"
The Grey Squirrel spent several minutes swinging about before giving
up and using another feeder he can wheedle fragments from.
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Wandering around the plot we often startle a pheasant. Here the dominant male saw us well in advance, and a slow approach led to an orderly withdrawal without loss of dignity. These birds don't seem to have much sense 'what happens next' - if we are walking towards them and they move behind a hedge where they can't see us, they stop, and then panic when we arrive.
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About 6 mallard ducks (including 1 drake in eclipse) are still frequenting the ponds and the paths between them. Here was a chance encounter while out walking.
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At the end of April 2012 we first spotted Jackdaw eggs in the
nest intended for Tawny Owls.
It reached 4 eggs, after 20 days we have some chicks but the
chicks reduced to one that grew to adult size before departing 56
days (2 months) after there were just 2 eggs.
Image 3 shows one of the adults guarding the nest incubated by
the other sitting on eggs inside. Where the bedding went during
last 4 images we don't know - maybe the jackdaw was VERY hungry!
We strongly suspect that the final chick ate his siblings during
cold and wet weather. We are surprised how fully developed the
bird was before fledging.
There is a lot more detail before reduction to fit
here - if you want it just ask & we will email it (file is about 11MB).
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