Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
We don't often catch slugs rearing up like this. We think fieldmice (wood mice) like to lick the sweet slime - don't worry - it wont bite it!
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"I forgot my umbrella"
In the 'small hours' a wet fieldmouse (wood mouse) stands in the rain with a huge
drop about to run down into the nose.
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We just love this - Carrot tops seems to be more popular than the root, and this Grey Squirrel eats it like we do celery.
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Is this the Grey Squirrel version of a 'Fairisle' jumper?
We often see interesting patterns in animal fur caused by how it
lays rather actual colouration, but this is rather striking
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Just a little jump over the crevasse!
The second image from the left is about half the birds body
height higher than accuracy requires in order to avoid smothering
the bird on the left, but the up-down-up pattern is real.
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Bye-bye says the Grey Wagtail
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This Grey Squirrel had a fine old time in an Ash tree finding the winged seeds and eating the good bit!
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Our Infra-Red Stealth cameras have caught appearances of both female and male (with tiny antlers and tusks) in the last few weeks. This is the female picking over the windfall apples at about 4 a.m.
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Just after dawn on the same day you can see the underside of the female Muntjac deer's left rear hoof. The little double slot tracks in the mud are a sure sign that 'a Muntjac was here'.
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Just after the next midnight a lovely SURPRISE - she is taking her Fawn through the magical lands. Although the cameras take 3 images in 'quick' (a few seconds at night) succession, this was the only image we got of the fawn.
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Only a few days to official Winter, and the Grey Squirrels seem to be even more boisterous than usual.
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Only a few days to official Winter, and the Grey Squirrels seem to be even more boisterous than usual.
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Only a few days to official Winter, and the Grey Squirrels seem to be even more boisterous than usual. This one is chasing off a Magpie whose edge of feather is all the camera caught.
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Only a few days to official Winter, and the Grey Squirrels seem to be even more boisterous than usual. The lower squirrel is facing us as the upper one leaps away.
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We first saw (and bought) a Romanesco Cauliflower in our local
Tesco a few years ago, and haven't seen once since until one
appeared on the Ocado supermarket site. They taste a little
different to the standard varieties, but the Fractal pattern is
so attractive we can't resist buying one!
Wikipedia tells us the fractal dimension is about 2.8 - look it
up if interested.
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Make up your own caption ...
We think fieldmice (wood mice) enjoy licking the (said to be sweet) mucus
from slugs.
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A male chaffinch 'dropping in' to see what food in on offer. You get here the unusual view including the green back.
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Welcome back, if only for about a minute as we see on the CCTV of
the same event. This tawny owl flew low over the pond at the back of
this photograph, swooping up to land on the perch. The bird had a
brief look around at the ground, and then flew off.
Maximum pupil dilation for night vision in these large eyes (that
can barely move in their sockets) seems to have evolved to the
point where the Iris completely withdraws from the visible
cornea. Compare with the Tabby cat image
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A Tabby as his 'owner' never sees him, with iris reduced to narrow bands in the near blackness. See a contrasting comment for the Tawny owl whose Iris can 'vanish'.
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Turning in mid-flight, this female Chaffinch gives us a lovely view of her face.
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The way this Grey Squirrel is holding and eating the remains of the apple looks so 'human' we find it almost unnerving.
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This Pied Wagtail tried to catch the insect you can see near the bottom right of centre (complete with it's own shadow), but missed it!
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Here the Pied Wagtail tried to land on the surface of one of the smoother slates, and slid down flapping wings to retain balance until its claws caught on the rough stuff at the edge.
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Grey Squirrels don't hibernate!
But we don't have much idea what these 2 are up to.
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The flying debris suggests that these Grey squirrels are having a rough-house or a love-in!
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The current local female Kestrel seems to tolerate us a little better than average (i.e. doesn't fly off at a sighting hundreds of metres away!). We were watching her on the 11kV overhead cables and she unexpectedly flew down to the hedge immediately below and spent a couple of minutes staring at the ground and momentarily, us. The bird was on a substantial chamfer on the hedge top (cut this way to stop snow build-up breaking the branches) and we have maintained the angle in this montage.
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She then flew back to the high voltage cables (shown here), and shortly after moved away when the postman's red van sped up our track.
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A male great spotted Woodpecker poised nicely for a picture as he Wheedles peanuts from the feeder.
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A Great Tit Poised on the edge of the stone providing a good view of the claws.
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We have 2 frames of this Squirrel spending a few minutes 'licking it's way along the log' for the peanut butter that is streaked along the top of the log each evening.
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Grey Squirrel vs. Male pheasant.
Grey squirrel teeth and claws will see off most other creatures,
but to our surprise the pheasant 'wins' most of these encounters
- at least the next image shows the pheasant still at the site
with the squirrel gone or just feeding. The same thing happened
the following morning.
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What may be this years dominant male pheasant still at the site after the grey squirrel tried to chase it away.
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We often see this always scruffy Bluetit at this site, and here it is face to face with an immaculate male Chaffinch. The Chaffinch male is much more laissez-faire than others around the site, and is content to feed in peace with the Bluetit.
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On our first record this autumn of a black-beaked male Blackbird we searched our database to find out when we last saw one, and it turns out our first ever sighting was exactly 1 year ago exactly to the day!
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After 8 months of absence, we at last have an owl again visiting our new Meadow Post (at a time when we can spot it on the IR CCTV). This Tawny Owl spent several minutes peering down to the left, but provides a better portrait when it spent half a minute looking to the right.
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One often hears of the 'Facial Disc' and see photos from the front, but here this side-on view shows how amazingly flat the face is.
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"Hi-ya chic"
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This 'Speedy Gonzales' Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) was behind the one on the stone but is probably showing off!
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This beautiful little bird is a Grey Wagtail - for us an altogether too colourful bird for its name. Over the winter sunny days bring several species of Wagtail to our slate roof to capture insects drawn out from under the slates by their warming in the sun even on cold days.
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This White wagtail spent 15 minutes or so catching fly like insects emerging from under the slates. At 7 frames per second all the images are accurately montaged, but the left-most one is about 1 second after the one before - the bird made a gently touchdown that didn't work out well as a montage.
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A squirrel version of "3 little maids from School" - is this
squirrel called Yum-Yum we wonder?
We put out the husks from enjoying Tesco chestnuts (the squirrels always eating all
of ours before they are ready for us) and these 3 images are over 12 minutes as the Squirrel
worked its way along the stone nibbling out the bits we missed.
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Birds with their heads facing away are not normally the stuff of interesting images, but the wonderful spread of feather on this landing Tawny owl is irresistible.
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Another dry insulating leaf for the Drey - wherever it might be.
As autumn progresses we get to see a couple of Dreys in deciduous trees,
but think most of them are sensibly in evergreen trees.
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"What do you mean by ROTTEN apple in my title! Its nicely Mature."
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Here a Buzzard started to stretch down his talons to defend
against the mobbing Rook, but (or perhaps in response) the rook flew off.
All in only about half a second.
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Here the White Wagtail flew between the roof ridges.
We love the turn at the end to land facing the sun-warmed slates.
Yesterday we showed the left 6 in greater detail
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The last 6 frames of a White Wagtail flying between roof ridges. We have spread out the bird landing. The rightmost bird had the wing missing from the original frame. Tomorrow we show the whole sequence.
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The Tawny Owl's tail (upper left) suggests that it flew in towards the camera and twisted at the last moment to catch something on the camera side of the log. Zooming in and adjusting the exposure histogram still doesn't tell what is going on under the bird's talons - anything in them is hidden by the wing. A mouse is fleeing the site at the bottom right but it may not have been the target judging from the direction of leap.
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