Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
We think this fieldmouse (wood mouse) is licking the slug for its tasty mucus.
Ugh!
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Water drops on the camera lens protector have created a little flare, but it still seems worth showing this unusually positioned Grey Squirrel.
 on food on log (crop)(r+mb id@768).jpg)
A female Muntjac deer visited the main pond's island again after several months. Here is her enormous tongue.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Here she is pulling mouthfuls of leaves from the self-set willow saplings. By the time we spotted her she had substantially reduced the lush vegetation. She is welcome - saves us the trouble.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
This female Mallard duck (with male a couple of metres left of her) took off as we approached the pond. This montage is of the 2nd and 4th images (from a set of 9) with the bird accurately positioned (apart from the Lily fronds blowing about in the wind).
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
With the sun just glancing along the wall at the left, this accurate montage
shows a starling arriving at the hole under the slates with a beakful of
insects for the noisy youngsters inside.
Both the bird and the shadows are accurately positioned over about half a second.
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
An Orange-tip butterfly feeding on a Lady's Smock (Cuckoo Flower) flower.
Where's the 'orange' bit then? Like many sexually dimorphic species, the
orange tips to the wings are on the males only - this is a female.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Right to left half an hour apart, the grey squirrel(s) are anywhere there is a chance for some food.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
An impression of this robin singing on the mains wire near the house This sample was at 7fps
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
The unsettled weather has brought with it some wild cloudscapes
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
An unusual rainbow segment laying along the horizon. You are seeing just the 'top' of the bow which is at a fixed angle to the sun behind the viewer/camera. If the sun had been any higher the whole bow would have to be below the horizon but with no distant water in the air it wouldn't appear (like the rest of this one doesn't).
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Love the feet coming down like an aircraft's wheels (or should it read the other way round - birds did it first).
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Some sort of skirmish has left the Great Tit nearly upside down.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Looks like the same individual Grey Squirrel checking out this site in the morning (disappointed) and then the afternoon (joy) just after we left the site.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
We have planted dozens of Snakes-head Fritillary bulbs over the years, but the only clump to survive is of the white variant, here photographed still wet with rain.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
This seems to be typical of a Skylark returning to earth - a WHOOSH downward with feet down. This sequence is about 0.6 seconds worth - don't miss the one at the bottom right corner against the tree.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Togetherness Bluetit style - courtship feeding of the female (left) by the male. This is part of the pair-bond formation and which insects he brings helps the female 'decide' when to make eggs.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
A closer and lightened look shows the males beak inside the females.
(r+mb id@288).jpg)
A male Blackbird just landed on the tree stump giving us a great view of his tail.
.jpg)
A cold morning found this Grey squirrel flattening itself on the sun warmed steel of our decades old heating oil tank!
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
What's going on here?
The Grey squirrel is definitely on the back of the female mallard duck,
while the male duck stands behind - top of head at the tip of the squirrel
tail and shadow of beak on the tree.
We can only imagine what the squirrel thinks it is doing!
 (crop)(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Not much here for the Great Spotted Woodpecker female.
Her muddy beak suggests she has been turning over or probing the soil somewhere.
.jpg)
In the last of the daylight this late robin scare the s... out of the early emergent fieldmouse (wood mouse).
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
A couple of days later at the other ground-level camera a Robin and Dunnock having a serious go at each other.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Walking into the kitchen we spotted this heron wonderfully blending with the trees and willow branches. This is the only frame we got before it saw us through the window and departed.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
This adult heron found several Great Crested Newts in the Duck-shaped pond in about half an hour - mostly nicely obscured by old and new vegetation. Here the bird was tossing one down his enormous beak.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Over a corn crop in an adjacent field, this Skylark waves it's head about to direct the sound, creating the characteristic rise and fall in volume. Read left to right moving down - bottom right he stopped singing and started his dive to ground.
 1-9 of 9 (montage)(r+mb id@768).jpg)
This male mallard flew past in the evening sun quacking quietly (as the males do). Without a static reference to accurately montage it, we present a 1950s '3 ducks' montage, all taken in about half a second.
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
An atypically cold night for April reached -3C air temperature and much the blossom was crusted with frost.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Poised male chaffinch in full breeding colours
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
A most welcome sighting of a hare ambling over the dew drenched grass next to the corn crop.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
A male Brimstone butterfly feeding on the carpet of Ground Ivy
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
A tiny branch from the trunk of this cherry tree has produced this attractive bunch of flowers and leaves.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Female birds often demand food from the males during the early
breeding season, as the female Robin on left is doing.
It is called 'courtship feeding'. Apart from proving that the
male knows what to catch for the youngsters to come, it helps the
female to determine the availability of suitable food for chicks
and thus when to lay the eggs.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
This elegant Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) made an appearance.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
This Peacock butterfly will have overwintered and will hope to pair up with another hibernator to lay this years eggs.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
There is a hole in the flashing behind this downpipe, and Bluetits are making a nest in it!
(r+mb id@576).jpg)