Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
Mass Blossom never seems to impress in stills photos, so we have concentrated on a variety of blossoms on the same fruit tree after a rain shower.
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Mass Blossom never seems to impress in stills photos, so we have concentrated on a variety of blossoms on the same fruit tree after a rain shower.
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Mass Blossom never seems to impress in stills photos, so we have concentrated on a variety of blossoms on the same fruit tree after a rain shower.
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Mass Blossom never seems to impress in stills photos, so we have concentrated on a variety of blossoms on the same fruit tree after a rain shower.
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"Ouch!"`
The Dunnock (near the camera) is the object of an attack by the
Robin who has the Dunnocks left (near camera) wing in its beak
and a claw across it's back, so the Dunnock is being pulled over
towards the Robin. No sign of the struggle next day (no feathers
scattered about) so we guess the Dunnock made a safe getaway and
won't get so close to the robin next time.
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Intercept Course?
We think this Robin was giving the male Chaffinch a very
definite 'go away' signal. We don't know what happened next.
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We see Orange-tip butterflies on most outings at the moment when the sun is out. It is usually the males we see because they are out 'hunting' for females and only they have the bright orange tips. But we see the odd female so the males are presumably not left disappointed.
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Orange-tip butterflies are restless little souls who hardly ever stop their erratic flight. But they do need to refuel sometimes - this one on the Lady's Smock (Cuckoo Flower). The red wing tip appear only on the males, but the intricate green tracery (you can't see here) on the other side of the wing decorates both sexes.
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The posts supporting about 100 Lombardy Poplars along the farm road are starting to get used by the wildlife. We caught this robin stopping off for a moment presumably on his way back to the nest. Talk about 'overloaded'.
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A Robin with a caterpillar in the beak. We are seeing Robins all
round the site collecting insects & grubs.
Youngsters to feed already we think.
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This Bluetit landed in a pool of sunlight that the cameraman couldn't resist!
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A Sparrowhawk appearing quickly drew the attention of 2 Jackdaws who made the bird feel really unwelcome. Read this as sets of 3 birds, top left across to the right, and then bottom left across to the right. By the end of the sequence the Sparrowhawk is flying straight up. Each row is constant elevation but spread out to the right.
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This Red Kite flew by quite close to us and we captured these 4 images about a half second apart. The bland sky gives us no way to recreate the positions accurately so they are much too close.
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As the Red Kite circled it moved against some cloud edges, allowing us an accurate montage at 5 fps giving a better idea of flight speed.
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After several weeks absence of any owls, this Tawny owl made at
least 3 visits over about 30 minutes. We were lucky enough to get
an image of the bird departing.
And it is only luck - the IR sensors don't react fast enough on
re-acquisition of signal to use as a trigger. We take a photo
every 45 seconds while the beam stays broken, and we just got
lucky.
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Stomp - stomp - stomp.
A Moorhen's big feet don't make for elegance on land!
The sound of the stomp is all in our imagination.
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"I want your catch!"
Arriving at our South boundary we immediately spotted 2 distant
Kestrels swooping around each other at high speed. The bird
behind was shrieking at the bird in front, who we only later
discovered was carrying a rodent clutched in it's claws pulled
tightly to the bird's body.
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The chasing bird eventually gave up the chase, and the other flew our way which gave us the chance of a image showing the bird and prey more clearly, even if against the bright sky towards the sun.
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About a minute later the bird appeared from nowhere (i.e. we were not watching the right place!) and crashed down onto the top of the hedge along the bridleway. Several Jackdaws promptly surrounded the Kestrel and the whole scene went static for a minute or two before one of the Jackdaws flew at the Kestrel which made a vertical Ascent. The bottom of this montage is of the static scene with 4 of the Jackdaws on the hedge, and then the kestrel rising and twisting to face the camera. We have not managed to include all of the Jackdaws in flight which overlapped each other and the Kestrel.
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The kestrel then gained speed by diving down to skim along the bridleway path, persued by a hoard of Jackdaws who soon gave up the unequal chase.
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After a week of two with hardly a sighting of a Kestrel, we had
one 8 minute frenzy with at least 2 Kestrels to North and South.
We first spotted this kestrel on the crossbar of the power poles
leaning forward in expectation. It suddenly launched downwards
and left to start hovering much near the ground. Here is a
distant view of the whole swoop down and slowing to hover before
the bird vanished behind trees.
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A closer look at the start of the montage.
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A closer look at the end of the montage.
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The hole into the loft space used each year by Starlings is again in use. We have not worked out whether one or two families have taken the Penthouse apartment this year, and the birds seem atypically intolerant of our presence even 30 metres away. This bird did not seem to be carrying any load this time, spotted us and left without going through the hole. So we are mostly leaving them to 'do their thing' un-disturbed this year.
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We don't see many Green-veined White Butterflies. This one was by the edge of our concrete access track on the inevitable nettles.
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If this leap was from the tree branch about 3 metres above the image would be movement blurred even in the 1/1000 sec flash. So this must be the end of a more moderate leap from the ground.
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We can only guess why this Blue tit spent several minutes fluttering it's wings in the hedge outside the living room window. We couldn't hear any calling (although through double glazing) or see any other bird. At one point the bird landed on the Windowsill and pecked the glass, so perhaps it was displaying to it's reflection.
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4 more images from the Bluetit's excited behaviour outside our living room window.
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The Blackthorn blossom has been exceptionally gorgeous this year. This is the overgrowth of the boundary hedge to our west.
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An unusual juxtaposition of Robin and Bluetit.
The legs of the Bluetit are well spread as if it was climbing up the
side of the trunk.
We have no idea what happened next!
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The first nest in the ivy by a pair of wrens was completely smothered
by a pair of Blackbirds building their own nest on top of it.
Now a pair of Wrens (maybe the same pair) have built a nest just
visible from inside the house at the top corner of the living
room window in the same overhanging ivy. During the build the
birds sometimes paused in the hedge outside long enough for us
to grab an image in the early morning sunshine. Here a wad of
moss from the edge of the pond is joining many other beakfuls
already delivered.
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Our old friend the gap-winged Buzzard had a brief fly-by, of which this is an impression
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We were thrilled to get a continuous unbroken sequence of 67 images of buzzard circling in front of us & then flying away. But trying to turn this into an accurate representation turned out to be a frustrating and argumentative session when image overlaps and alignments just didn't work against areas of bland sky. So here are 2 segments of the action - the fist 10 of these are accurately montaged at 5 fps, but the remainder are mostly guesswork and memory.
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The featureless background of this twisting and turning Buzzard means we just show you the twists and turns as it turned to depart. The gaps between the images of the bird is about half what it probably was.
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Several badger appearances this week, along with a series of badger latrines along our East inner boundary path we have to step round as we walk along. This Badger was at the open site.
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Several badger appearances this week, along with a series of badger latrines along our East inner boundary path we have to step round as we walk along. This Badger was at the woodland site, and markings suggest that it is a different individual.
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Our first Speckled Wood Butterfly of the year. They overwinter in Chrysalis form to emerge in Spring, unlike Peacock, Tortoiseshell & Brimstone butterflies that overwinter as adults, and can wake up very tatty and bleached.
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An unusually tidy Tortoiseshell butterfly, for an over-wintered individual, on a piece of rotting wood. The wings are at about a right angle to one another so look foreshortened in this top view. We have been surprised by how much dead wood we get from such a young wood - several trees have died for no easily determined reason (and others from known 'plagues') though most are fine. Unless there is risk to creatures, fences, ponds or adjacent plants we tend to leave them as they become 'insect cafes' for many species. If we have to cut them we add them to wood-piles all over the site for the same purpose.
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We think we have 2 or 3 Song thrush territories, one around the house, another around our South boundary, and a third at the south edge of the woodland. This one is singing in a conifer by the garage both 'inherited' with the house.
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The same Song Thrush showing us the inside of his open beak as he sings his little heart out.
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A female Kestrel was hunting by hovering in a moderate wind. Here we caught her diving on some prey on the other side of the hedge. We waited a few minutes but did not see her again, so don't know whether the stoop was successful. The speed up indicated by the widening gaps is accurate, but the proper gap between the top bird and the stoop is unknown.
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This male Kestrel has taken to sometimes hunting in a circuit with our patch in it. As usual such birds like posts as convenient hunting perches. Here on the remaining concrete electricity pole quite close to the house while we were only 15 metres away or so.
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Skylark rising - 3 frames at 7 fps shows the little guy climbing into the blue. There seem to be several pairs in the crop to our east.
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Skylarks were chasing around in pairs over the crop. This is a single frame, the only sharp one of this activity. The bird behind has his beak open so may be calling, but we didn't hear anything.
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For once an ACCURATE montage of a Skylark where we have the distant trees to use for alignment. Here he is taken at about 7 fps and drifting in the wind.
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A Heron made a 300 metre flight over the farmers crop at low level - perhaps 1 to 2 metres above the crop. The majesty of the birds progress particularly impressed us. This is an accurate montage at 7fps
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With the focus locked at the first exposure it is necessary to pause and re-focus regularly when the birds distance changes. This picks up the flight as the Heron moves past.
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This is a closer view of the 3rd image from the right in the previous montage. All of the originals are of similar quality. Individual frames or the montage at camera resolution are available for the asking.
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The pair of Robins at this site billing and cooing (or whatever Robins do) photo-bombed by the much closer Wood Pigeon. Genuine unaltered frame.
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A pleasing juxtaposition of Robin and Cherry Blossom.
We are sure the Robin is indifferent to the beauty, but we are not.
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The rabbits have missed this Snake-head Fritillary! The camera is near the ground looking up into the flower on the bank of a pond.
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Cherry Blossom is beautiful en-masse on the trees, and a closer look at the individual flowers does not disappoint.
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A Bee-fly with characteristic long straight Proboscis hovering perhaps
2.5 metres up over the rough meadow grass. The brown pattern on the wings
almost looks 'painted' on with brush streaks, but has not been 'fiddled' with.
Manual exposure 1/4000Sec F7 170mm (not allowing for 1.4x teleconverter) 2500 ISO
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A Little Egret flew around the brook and eventually came to land
in a field occupied by Ewes and their lambs. Unfortunately the
bird landed a bit to the left at a place hidden by trees.
The bird is accurately montaged at about 7 fps but the 3 sheep
bottom right have been moved left a little for a better effect.
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