Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
Several juvenile Long-tailed Tits were exploring a group of trees for food. These nervous birds always seem to manage to get some bit of foliage between them and the camera!
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Several juvenile Long-tailed Tits were exploring a group of trees for food. These nervous birds always seem to manage to get some bit of foliage between them and the camera!
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The juveniles from different robin families show us the development of the red breast.
This bird has just a hint of a single red feather.
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The juveniles from different robin families show us the development of the red breast.
This bird has 4 red feathers scattered over it's breast.
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The juveniles from different robin families show us the development of the red breast.
Here there are so many feathers turned red you can't count them any more.
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"Heatwave Heron"
This Heron quietly flew past beak wide open and tongue lolling from side to side.
We guess the bird was HOT!
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The original frame included a female chaffinch with back to camera threatening all and sundry, but the most satisfying crop shows just this Great Tit about to brave the Chaffinch's ire.
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The pecking order!
2 Great Tit adults (far right) and 3 juveniles make the solitary juvenile
bluetit on the left wait until they have had their fill.
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LOTS of fox visits this week, and lots of fox poo over the site mostly filled with cherry stones. Opportunist feeders!
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"Look at me - I've got 2 red feathers"
Actually the bird probably can't see them, but this is how we
always see them arriving in an apparently random pattern over the breast.
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"Are you here with food?
This was after our last walk round the field so we don't
really know what was going on, but we often see this sort
of 'hopeful' look from Robins as we walk by.
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This Grey Squirrel spent about 25 minutes on the stump apparently working its way through this carrot. Carrots tend to get left until last (as here) so the squirrel must have been really hungry to eat it all at one sitting. Hope it didn't end up with tummy ache!
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Early on Sunday morning we often see Hares around the usually busy track down to the local Farm/Business centre. On this misty and dewy morning we left them in peace and took a different path.
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This 3 cm long male Common Blue Damselfly is photographed soon after emergence from a nearby pond. It will change colour as it matures.
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The Banded Demoiselle Damselfly also is about 50% bigger than typical Damselflies, but much more noticeable. The bands are only seen on the male as here. The iridescent green thorax and blue abdomen are in their original jewel like colours and visible whatever the lighting.
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The Ringlet butterfly is an attractive brown butterfly.
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By any standard Privet Hawk-Moths are impressive insects with a body length of about 6cm (2.5 inches). This is a portrait hanging from hawthorn, although caterpillars feed on Privet and Lilac of which we have both.
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This is the Privet Hawk-Moth in flight, showing the small rear wings.
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After a night in the moth trap Moths often need to warm their flight muscles before take-off. This was the moment of lift-off from a hawthorn twig, the downstroke bending the right rear wing as it catches on a leaf.
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This delightful moth always appears very 2-dimensional when spread out at rest, but when active you can appreciate the creature rather better. Here it is in free flight.
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Of the 3 speckled wood butterflies we tried to photograph in flight, only this slightly damaged (possibly bird pecked) individual was a really cooperative flyer.
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The Cinnabar Moth is a daytime flyer and quite common as a startling red fluttering in the air. The eggs are laid on the foliage of the poisonous ragwort plant, whose flowers are seen here, with a vividly (warning) marked poisonous caterpillar.
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Caught in our moth trap (along with about 300 other moths) this
Peppered Moth wouldn't fly down our photographic flyway, so we
contented ourselves with portrait on a hawthorn twig.
Males have these 'feathery' antennae with which to pick up (it
is said) single molecules of the females pheromones
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This Stock Dove looks so relaxed as it preens itself by the log, probably after collecting 'supper'.
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The parent jackdaw on the right collected a large lump of peanut butter and corn mix from the side of the post, and spent several seconds sticking into the craw of this ever demanding youngster.
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This moderately distant buzzard made a steep turn against the strong wind providing us with this unusual sequence of the TOP of the bird while turning. NOT accurately spaced (no background to align against).
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Slightly blurred by the birds speed, the Sparrowhawk makes many attacks on the small birds on (and even in caged type) peanut feeders. This time the attack failed, but fortunately triggered the camera.
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Robins are breeding all over the plot - we haven't looked for the nests
but see all the activity we expect.
Any volunteers to be a little green grub - the favourite pick by the parents
to feed to the nestlings.
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At this site the robins have fledged. This young Robin has found it's own titbit.
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The red breast develops as they mature.
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Notice the shadow cast by this juvenile robin on the pine cone & ground
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A young fox with the right instincts.
There are several instances around our site of bird kills we
attribute to foxes. The remains on or near grass paths indicate
mainly pigeon, with a great tit and a Great Spotted Woodpecker.
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A 'brand new' Jackdaw with yellow beak edge and some downy feathers.
Can even a young Jackdaw be 'sweet' - we think this one gets as close as you can get!
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This is a pair of Large Red Damselflies, coupled for mating, alternately warmed themselves in the sun and then went off to lay some more eggs beneath the water
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This is a pair of Large Red Damselflies, coupled for mating, alternately warmed themselves in the sun and then went off to lay some more eggs beneath the water
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The Great Spotted Woodpecker youngster spend hours a day demanding to be fed. You can see the mother (lower bird) with beak inside the ever hungry youngster's unfillable chasm!
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3 days later Father Great Spotted Woodpecker was still shovelling in the grub.
3 more days saw the youngsters extracting peanut fragments for
themselves. Hopefully the parents are finding them better food
for them - insects of all kinds.
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A bit of confusion here - The arriving juvenile Magpie doesn't realise that the bird at the feeder is probably it's sibling and they are begging from each other.
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Rather handsome Magpie takes it's portrait.
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An early Sunday morning walk was rewarded by seeing some hares on the local farms track. This one was facing into a blustery east wind, and we presume the flat ears were more comfortable
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We finally tried the Hares patience, and it bounded away. This (to us anyway) bizarre frame tells us that hares can indeed see behind them!
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The robins 'owning' the area around this site have photographed themselves several times with these tiny caterpillars in their beaks. We don't provide Robin nestboxes - they prefer the extensive hedging.
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In January 2013 we put up this Barn owl box and as we
rather expected Jackdaws decided it was 'perfect' and a pair
have raised 2 chicks in it.
What we didn't expect was for a 6 month old box to be badly
de-laminating. On top of that the inadequate side panel fixing
failed and this panel fell off. We decided not to try and re-fix
it, took this pic of the chicks and will sort it out when they
have fledged. Needless to say the parents find it much easier to
get in and out!
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A fine young Dunnock flapping his wings like mad to develop the muscles.
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Near the house this Dunnock watched the cameraman through the grill of the conservatory door security gate.
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