Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
A peaceful moment as a pair of chaffinches feed on the freshly sprinkled corn.
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This male chaffinch just looks so pristine and full of himself that we couldn't resist including him.
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In the conservatory we hear the scrabbling feet of Wagtails exploring the roof. By leaving through the front door and walking round the house we can sometimes get to see & photograph them from the outside. This White Wagtail has shortened the usual 'wait for a fly to emerge and dive on it' strategy - it just picked this torpid fly out of the crevice!
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Breakfast time for this Song Thrush.
All of the known 'Anvil' sites are currently disused - we
hope to discover where snails are now being smashed.
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In the Autumn debris, an immaculate Magpie took this photo.
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A chance moment of a Grey Squirrel hogging down a corn and peanut butter mix, as a magpie takes off behind.
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One of a pair of White Wagtails caught an insect taking off from the roof ridge. The top image shows the White Wagtail launching towards the fly just above the surface of the ridge cap. The second image (about 140mS later) the insect was fleeing but the bird has caught it anyway already within the open beak. It is clearer in the shadow than in the direct image!
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This was our first attempt at the above montage. The initial position of the insect was muddled in with the shadow of the foot of the flying bird, so we didn't include it. The third image was obviously delayed but it sort of finishes the sequence.
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"What's up there then?"
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Not long enough sunshine for a decent thermal so this Buzzard flew round the plot on flapping wing power, and thus rather lower than usual
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A family group of Goldfinches was feeding around the back of the house. The adults were feeding on Teasel heads we poke into the hedge top for them. Although in shade we can actually get within a few metres looking through the living-room window and get some detail. Here is a seed about to go down the hatch.
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On a clump of Willow trees at the edge of the pond a couple of juvenile Goldfinches (with gold flash but no red on the head yet) were picking over the willow tree for insects.
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We have not noticed before that the adults 'garden' the teasel heads when the long spikes prevent them from reaching the seeds. They bite as far down the spike as they can reach, then grip the top to bend it out of the way, and then push it down. Not so 'bird brained' then!
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We have reached the time of year when sun-warmed roof slates
bring along the Wagtails - in this case a pair of White Wagtails.
All the Wagtail varieties hunt by waiting on the ridge and flying
down to grab whatever appears. Here one flew past the other who
was calling, and then launched itself after the passing bird. No
fight ensued - they just landed separately on the roof ridge out
of frame to left.
We had some trouble representing this as a montage. This first try
is most attractive.
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This vertically aligned montage from the same images says more about how the birds were actually moving, but has lost a lot of its elegance. A third try with white horizontal bars seems likely to be better, but didn't work at all (not included).
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Surprise of the week was this Peregrine Falcon - our first ever ID of one. The bird is a bit bigger than a Sparrowhawk, but smaller than a Buzzard. As we exited the house it was flying over a pair of 25 year old Black poplars. This was the first frame in-focus.
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Peregrine Falcons are known for being the fastest creatures in the world when in a 'stoop' after prey. But they fly pretty fast just going from A to B - we measure about 25 bird length per second making a montage view not very satisfying. From the flyby here is a decent view of the top of the wings
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It wasn't until we examined the images later that we realised that this a captive bird fitted with Jesses and two bells on it's feet.
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As the nights lengthen we are starting to see more of the Owls. Here is the dark-faced tawny owl and a rather attractive 1-off image of the Barn owl with right leg ring.
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In the distance we saw a large dark bird getting the mobbing treatment from about a dozen Rooks, but we were unable to decide what the target bird was and assumed that this would remain one of life's many 'don't knows'. But the bird slowly flew in our general direction, and finally over an adjacent arable field and between us and the black poplars about 100m away. Well this turned out to be our first ever identification of a Raven.
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The closest our first sighting of a Raven got to us - about 100m away as it passed in front of a Black Poplar tree.
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What seems to be the same Tawny owl made 3 short visits to the post about 3 hours apart (10p.m + midnight + 3a.m.). Not seen at all in the following 4 days.
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About 30 minutes after the middle image above, we got this (most
likely the same) Tawny Owl flying away from the kitchen window.
An inspection of the CCTV recording shows that the bird landed on
the top of the free-standing peanut feeder (out of crop to the right)
15 minutes earlier (without triggering the IR beam to the left of
the feeder) and had stayed there until take-off breaking the beam
for this image.
Way out of focus & heavily 'sharpened' - any larger sample looks horrid!
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This Barn Owl is catching a rodent (looks like a mouse) and eating
it on the top of the Meadow post. This is the whole sequence.
From the timings of the frames & very poor CCTV images we see
that the owl spent about 30 seconds on the top of the post, flew
away from camera to catch it's meal, then flew back and took his
photo again after landing (the beam runs through the middle of
the post and did not trigger on the landing). It then eats its
prize in about 4 beakfulls (dips to the talons visible on CCTV).
We have only ever seen them eaten 'whole' in TV programs so were
surprised to see the bottom left frame showing some uneaten parts
that fit with our '4 dips' observation The final frame shows the
cleaned up 'plate', and then it flew off.
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We have suddenly clued in to Grey squirrels having a partly developed 'thumb' on their fore-paws. They have 5 claws on the hind paws (feet) and 4 claws plus 'thumb' on the front paws (hands). We don't find the 'thumb' at all well represented in ID book drawings, and some even get the digit counts the wrong way round for front and rear paws.
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We have suddenly clued in to the rear paws of Grey squirrels turning right round so that the claws can grip a tree running down the trunk head first - a very unusual feature!
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We have suddenly clued in to the rear paws of Grey squirrels turning right round so that the claws can grip a tree running down the trunk head first - a very unusual feature!
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We spotted this female Kestrel hunting over our meadow and photographed her through the bars of a security gate - she is intolerant of humans in the open. The end of her third hover, when she flew off to the South.
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Moving between hovers we get a view of the top of this female kestrel's wings
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During one hover this female Kestrel's attention gets taken with something we had no sight of off to our left.
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A Sweet Chestnut has been taken to the top of the tree-stump to be Ripped open. Judging by the debris we find, they also use the slates on top of bits of photo equipment and other flat surfaces .
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We don't know why the Grey squirrels bring food, like the earlier sweet chestnut and this time a bunch of Ash seeds, to the top of the tree-stump. Maybe it is flat and another Squirrel can't try to steal the food without warning!
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We occasionally see a Cormorant or pair flying high overhead, but here a single bird gave us this chance for a reasonably close image. Accurately positioned at about 5 fps .
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Another sequence (not accurately spaced) gives you a closer look at the Cormorant's wings in up and down positions.
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A couple of visits by what is probably the same Tawny Owl across midnight The first visit lasted at least 14 minutes - this is a selection of the better images.
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A single frame of two birds probably surprising each other with
what looks like a simultaneous arrival.
No 'Air Traffic Controllers' here.
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After a summer without a sighting, a Barn owl took 4 frames of
itself on the meadow post. This is the only image with a face,
and you can see staining from blood on the white feathers just
to the right of the bird's beak.
Owls look lovely, but they survive by killing.
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We could have 'erased' the one bird breaking the symmetry of this Vegetarian society 'V' shape, but think the shape is lovely anyway. Birds fly in these formations to use the wake of the bird in front and to one side to get a 'tow'. At the moment all the geese fly off to the North East rather than to the local lakes.
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When an image is overexposed and 'burnt out' we often make a negative of it as part of the procedure for correcting the highlights (which become lowlights where you can use gamma correction to selectively correct it). But as the negative appeared on the screen we both went 'oooo' and thought you might also enjoy the purity.
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The Hobby collecting lunch. The dot just below middle was in this
position in the frame with the left bird, had just caught it
about 200mS later, and was already moving it to the beak 200mS
after that.
Life in the fast lane!
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A 10 p.m. picnic for a pair of Fieldmice (Wood Mice)?
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Can you read expressions in mice? We don't know - but this one doesn't look too happy about what it is looking at.
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On the CCTV we saw this heron land outside the kitchen and we crept into the kitchen for a few pics.
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The departure of a post van persuaded the Heron to leave. Standing back from the window so as not to be seen (the kitchen is very dark without lights) the windows frame quickly got in the way so we only got this launch. This montage is mirrored to give you left to right movement - the bird actually took off into the wind TOWARDS the post van.
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Stepping up to look over a hedge surprised both the photographer and this Heron just on the other side which promptly flew off. This image amazed us with the definition of the body contours, presumably a mix of feather patterns and muscles powering the startled climb, with lighting just right to accentuate the shapes.
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The startled heron powering it's way into the sky after being as surprised as the photographer at spotting each other.
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This Sparrowhawk landed outside the kitchen Window for this drop-dead gorgeous portrait.
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Later in the morning possibly the same Sparrowhawk flew past us and then back, no doubt eyes peeled for an unsuspecting victim for his 'elevenses' (it was 10:50 a.m.).
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"Eat this!".
Recently fledged juvenile Swallows perch on tree branches or cables,
to be fed by the adults without them even landing
The claws of the parent (right) are unusually visible as his
beak goes completely into the juveniles gape.
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Recently fledged juvenile Swallows perch on tree branches or cables,
to be fed by the adults without them even landing
This is a left to right montage. The bird lower right was
disappointed this time, but the parents were surprisingly
even-handed overall.
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Recently fledged juvenile Swallows perch on tree branches or cables,
to be fed by the adults without them even landing
In this instance the adult visited both of 2 juveniles next to each
other on the wire, delivering part of his load to each bird all in about 3 seconds.
Start bottom right and follow clockwise. The 2 perched birds are shown at the moment
that each was fed, and the bird in flight circled round to feed the bird on the left before
flying back the way it came (top right).
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Recently fledged juvenile Swallows perch on tree branches or cables
to be fed by the adults without them even landing
Here you see the whole feed taking less than a second. The order is
2 3 1 4 5
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Recently fledged juvenile Swallows perch on tree branches or cables,
to be fed by the adults without them even landing
Here the adult in flight has delivered a beakful of insects to the
perched juvenile, but a lucky one escaped and can be seen flying away.
View the montage as pairs of birds left to right.
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A couple of juvenile Swallows perched on main electricity cables for what must have been a late brood for these youngsters to be waiting to be fed - supplementary feeding 'on the wing' is more typical for this time of year. Here one of the Juvenile Swallows was briefly joined by a Goldfinch landing on the wire.
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While waiting for food (sometimes 10 minutes or so apart,
sometimes more than one visit a minute) this juvenile Swallow had
a lovely stretch of both wings in turn. Note the very long wings.
The bird is going to need strong healthy wings for the first
journey to Africa.
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