Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
There are not many Buzzard about at the moment, and the Corvids anyway reliably pester them until they go away! In the breeding season they predate the Rook eggs, and the Rookery is only a few hundred metres away.
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The muddy object in this Grey squirrels mouth is a Hazel Nut still in its shell. We have several Hazel (Cob) Nut trees, but the Squirrels leave us absolutely no crop for us to harvest! This nut looks like it has just been previously buried and now dug up for a snack.
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The problem with purchasing seed mixes is that we really have little idea what is in the sack beyond corn, Sunflower and Niger seeds. This Great Tit looks really pleased with this find!
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A 'new' male Pheasant stepping into the frame - the wide neck ring means this is not the bird we have been seeing during the previous few weeks.
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A detail from the above of the legs and claws of the male Pheasant
The spike just below the feathers is used for fighting other males
when they meet during the breeding season.
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Two frames taken 10 minutes apart left to right.
The squabble on the right may be just that, or a couple testing each
other - even in humans loving can come confusingly near to fighting.
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A capricious moment of a leaping fieldmouse (wood mouse) and a falling leaf. Our guess is that the falling leaf startled the mouse, rather than the mouse flipping up the leaf. The leaf is in beautiful condition for a 'discard'.
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3 images of a (possibly just one individual) Robin maneuvering in the air over
the perch. 3 moments over 100 minutes arranged for artistic effect.
Don't interpret this as a 'bird in flight accurate montage'!
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A Robin preparing to land. We like the shadow of the legs on the underside of the wing.
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The intense blue at the tail and head indicate that the normal blue colour is enhanced in some lighting and angles by an iridescent effect.
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We try to avoid 'tidying' up the autumn leaves and just sweep them away from the camera and sense beams. We rather like the colour contrast between bird and leaves.
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After 5 years with no images of a Sparrowhawk on this post, we get 3 visits over 2 days. Here is one of the landing, for a 5 minute visit shortly before sunrise. How delicate the legs appear for such a powerful bird.
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The first visit by the female Sparrowhawk missed the landing - it was already on
the post when the camera turned on for the night's vigil at 4 p.m. during November.
BBC 'Autumnwatch' on 6th November 2015 features Chris Packham's
'best bird' is the male Sparrowhawk. This female is not as
beautifully coloured as the male but still has power and elegance
... unless you are a 'Sparrow'.
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At Sunset another short visit (just 2 frames) caught this female Sparrowhawk landing against the darkening background.
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A pair of Carrion Crows often share the top of this conifer, though they vary their perches. Here the Right-hand bird opening it's wings and the strong southerly wind (from the right here) did the rest!
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Several small (10 or 20) bird well spaced flocks of Fieldfares are flying around the area.
Here is a single bird in a strong wind from the right initially gliding with wings partly
folded, and then spreading the wings for a few power strokes.
The Fieldfare version of 'Bounding flight' without losing much height with wings
closed - you don't notice their height changing as they fly like you do with Woodpeckers
who completely fold their wings.
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This female Great Spotted Woodpecker looks lovely and clean after her moult as she flies past the kitchen window.
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A portrait of one of the migrant black-billed Blackbirds that spend the winter here.
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This Pheasant is obviously shaking out his feathers. We haven't heard any of the male's characteristic calls yet, but a couple of females also appear every day or so.
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An inter-species encounter at the kitchen window perch.
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A Greenfinch flying in to the peanut feeder has just spotted a rival already in 'possession'.
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A regular morning sight - a Grey Squirrel commandeering the
just peanut feeder just replaced in the morning.
If left out regularly at night Rats use it overnight.
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It's a Spud! (Potato for you non-UK readers)
It's a Bulb!
No, it's a stone.
We saw this squirrel take about 6 moderate sized pebbles out of
one of the few really tidy flowerbeds, and took them off in it's
mouth in various directions to bury in the 'lawn' and other
roughly cut grass. It must think it is a tuber that will soften in storage
Some unexpected hazards for the mower next year
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A Brown rat is making occasional visits to the hedge and meadow sites. Here we see it possibly inspecting a leopard slug (with another small slug to the right) and suspect that one or both slugs ended up on the menu. Rat's tail amaze us - real and powerful 5th limbs.
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We enjoy looking at cloud shapes, and can't resist likening this one to a poodle on hind legs facing left begging for a treat.
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The full moon (when occasionally visible though the mainly overcast clouds) has seemed uncommonly bright. Here just after sunrise (behind the camera of course) making a subtle image with streaks of colour in the veil of clouds.
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A Kestrel hovering above a hedge but not catching anything before wandering off to the east. The bird was stationary in the air and the images are spread out downwards
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A dramatic arrival for this Barn owl
We decided not to remove the 'Red-eye' effect - it adds to the drama.
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A very short stop by a barn Owl was introduced by this almost perfectly symmetrical landing. Not a bad 'living' contender for a Totem Pole.
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Oooh - Mice, Voles, Rabbits, Peanut?
An apparently healthy fox comes through from the path behind this
site sniffing the stone to help build it's picture of the site.
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2 minutes later the fox appears to have moved to the rear and then turned anti-clockwise to continue the hunt leaving it's tail pushing against the stems.
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Autumn is good for spectacular sunsets.
We have not enhanced the colours.
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Note the bright spot above and left of the sun producing its own
wide cone of up-light.
We have not enhanced the colours.
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This sundog was unusually intense to the right of the sun, but barely perceptible to the left. Here shown with the sun ...
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... and a close-up of the sundog along with the wispy clouds looking like a celestial wave breaking in the sky.
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Here for once you can actually see the haze of the green and blue in the spectrum that we can often 'see' but gets lost in the camera. This is the original camera frame reduced in size. If we try to show it at larger scale the colours are lost again.
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Early morning rain has not discouraged this Magpie from looking over the site for last night's 'left overs', apparently equipped with an adequate 'raincoat' of feathers
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This female Kestrel spent over 2 hours hunting from the 11KV power crossbars and the wires. We were delighted that we were considered 'mostly harmless' through the 2 visits we made to our boundary to watch her. Here she is as we first saw her.
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We caught this long (maybe 150m) female Kestrel's flight over 58 frames at about 7 fps (slower near the end as the camera's buffering ran out) as she took off from one stretch of wire to land on a different wire to the west.
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The female Kestrel dropped below the height of the wires as she flew along
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The Female Kestrel used her speed to glide upwards onto her chosen cable to continue her hunt.
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"Peek-a-Boo"
A fieldmouse (wood mouse) peeps around the edge of the stone in the twilight,
well lit momentarily by the camera flash.
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The great Tit on the perch looks like he is fed-up with the robin taking over the peanuts, and is ready (or at least pretending to be ready) to defend it's position.
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A little lunchtime confrontation about who gets access to the huge peanut feeder to the right.
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A less mature male Kestrel to the one hunting on the power lines is
here regaining balance on the flimsy Oak twig he landed on at the
edge of our meadow, and then starting to have a look
around.
Read this montage right to left.
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A fully mature male Kestrel spent several minutes hunting from the 11KV power lines along the bridleway to the north. Here the bird stooped onto some unfortunate creature we couldn't see by the edge of the farm road.
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A detail from the above showing the 'classic' plumage of the male Kestrel just like it looks in the ID books!
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The Kestrel returned to the high voltage cables for another hunt.
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A Dunnock with claws ready for action attacks an equally belligerent but positionally disadvantaged male Chaffinch on the ground.
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Blue, Purple, Yellow, Green down the tail, Bright Blue on the wings.
Magpie do well for 'Black and White' birds.
No - we haven't 'wound up' the colours - a little gamma to lighten the
birds dark head was the only change.
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The decades old prostrate juniper under which the Weasel(s) lived has
suddenly died (probably after invading the drain and getting it's roots
damaged during unblocking).
Here a Weasel seems to have adopted the gap under a large plant
half-barrel supported on a couple of long breeze blocks.
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Squirrels are now in too much of a hurry to feed to bother much with squabbling.
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Squirrels are now in too much of a hurry to feed to bother much with squabbling.
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This Barn Owl (without any leg ring) occupied the post from just after midnight for about 4 and a half hours, counting 5 'landings' at the post. Landing 2 arrived with a rodent in the beak. Unfortunately the Owl consumed the rodent with back to camera (middle image) but then turned round and showed us what a satisfied smug and sleepy Owl looks like for about 15 minutes.
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This Barn Owl (without any leg ring) occupied the post from just after midnight for about 4 and a half hours, counting 5 'landings' at the post. Landings show a lot of variety, so here are landings 1, 3 and 4.
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According to numerous distribution maps this Wheatear has no business appearing in the UK midlands, and this is our first sighting. Thanks to email group members for identifying this bird for us.
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