Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
Each year since 2012 this black-billed variant of the resident yellow-billed male Blackbird arrives to swell our population. This is the first we have noticed this year.
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Lily seed heads make a fascinating pattern full of small 'pills' of the seeds in little stacks amid the tangled dehydrated pods
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The height of the sun and the ice clouds made a lovely bright and colourful Sundog to the right of the evening sun
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The height of the sun and the ice clouds made a lovely bright and colourful Sundog to the right of the evening sun As the ice clouds slowly move through the sky position required for sundog, the pattern changes. Only a very faint Sundog appeared symmetrically to the left of the sun.
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24 hours apart to the minute, a male (right) and then female (left) Chaffinch landed at almost identical places on the left of the tree-stump. The male 'volunteered' to be mirror imaged for artistic effect and he appears on the right.
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We struggled out of bed in the early hours for these images of
the total eclipse of the moon at perigee (called the 'Blood Moon'
in the press). By 6 a.m. fog had descended.
Top left to right, Bottom left to right:-
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On a cold mid-day these two Comma butterflies were almost torpid on this blackberry clump. The insect on the left is facing us, and the one on the right is showing the wings lit from the underside.
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On a cold mid-day these two Comma butterflies were almost torpid on this blackberry clump. This is the insect with it's wings closed, and even though apparently torpid, the proboscis was in the fruit looking for juice.
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Just a large plant pot saucer and a few stones has made this 'bird bath' a great hit with the smaller birds and the Squirrels. With so many ponds with graded edges there are plenty of places for birds of all sizes to bathe when not frozen. This trough just brings them close to camera. In the winter we put out an electrically heated tray but it is not very photogenic - just important for birds feather care on frozen days.
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"Be my Love?"
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"This is MY carrot".
Note the broken whiskers on the left side (as we view it)
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A young rabbit nibbling at a piece of windfall Apple - leaving it white where the rest is still brown.
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A male Muntjac Deer chomping away at an early fallen Maple leaf. This image was taken using Infra-Red light by a 'Trail Cam'.
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A few days later a better look at the male Muntjac Deer. You can see the left antler 'in velvet' partly hidden by the left ear, and the white speck along his mouth line is his tiny tusk which only the male of the species sports on each side.
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After several attempt this Jackdaw finally sees off the Kestrel. We notice the Kestrel's claw lowering in the last 2 frames, but have no idea why.
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About 400m from us this Kestrel made a characteristic hunting hover, dropping down in stages on some hapless prey. We never saw what happened once below the hedge.
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The Swallows are now mostly simply passing over, rather than stopping for a feed, as they make their way back to Africa.
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After hearing and glimpsing the departure of the Green Woodpecker for months we have finally caught an image of a juvenile lurking in a Lichen encrusted stem of a Willow tree.
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As the summer draws to a close, a dearth of Badgers is replaced by regular visits to 'fatten up' for the Winter's 'Sleep'. First on this comfortable dry night.
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As the summer draws to a close, a dearth of Badgers is replaced by regular visits to 'fatten up' for the Winter's 'Sleep'. This visit was on a wet night - we hope the fur isn't as uncomfortable as it looks.
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Not quite as dangerous as it looks, but similar focus for both Chaffinches suggests that they are only centimetres apart.
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A few late Butterflies are gracing the plot - this one was by the side of the main pond enjoying the nectar from a Water Mint flower.
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2 visits by the leg-ringed Barn owl 10 minutes apart.
Birds normally land into the wind, so the night must have been
particularly still to get 2 close spaced landing in opposite directions.
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2 visits by the leg-ringed Barn owl 10 minutes apart.
Birds normally land into the wind, so the night must have been
particularly still to get 2 close spaced landing in opposite directions.
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Friday Saturday night saw 2 visits from the ringed Barn Owl - a few minutes, a quarter of an hour gap and then a quarter of an hour stay. This was the first arrival.
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This montage shows the second arrival at the top, with some sort of twig caught up in the feathers which it must have picked up between the visits. Bottom left is the last frame from the first visit, and bottom right is the last frame from the second visit, still caught up with the twig. We don't see any images of the bird struggling to get rid of the debris. We have just cut back the developing scrub and it seems likely that the Owl pursued some prey into the heaped debris a few metres from this post.
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This cat making more unwelcome visits taking at least 2 prey items in one night. First it caught this fieldmouse (wood mouse) in one claw at the woodland site.
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20 minutes later cat was carrying away more prey at the hedge site. We have trouble identifying the prey. Although it is 2 a.m. it looks like a bird, and size and shape suggest a Wren. But it is 2 a.m.when the Wren should be safely tucked asleep.
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An unusually broad contrail almost the width of the aircraft wings but with no emissions appearing from the engines. Pressure changes over and under the aerofoil and vortices behind it, mean the wings and tail (which produces a re-enforcing band in the centre) are undoubtedly responsible for the delayed effects half a plane length behind the wings, but life is too short for a thorough investigation.
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The Indian Rope Tail Trick?
The tail does genuinely seem to be touching the clover leaf!
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The Greenfinches have suddenly returned after the summer, this one making a not very accurate landing on the perch (dropping a bit short)
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An unusually clear image of a Robin flying to the peanut feeder. Robins are not very good at hanging feeders, but manage just fine at the big one sitting on the flat table just to the right of the frame.
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Our first sighting for months of a Greenfinch. We love the little 'trousers'.
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The same bird about minute later, the beakful now consumed but the feet not moved at all.
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A few days after our first recent sighting of the cat under the hedge
on the South boundary, here is hunting at 1:30 a.m. at the woodland site.
When we first saw this in thumbnail form we thought the potato and
leaf stalk near bottom right was a mouse the cat was hunting!
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The mouse that got away (from the cat 2.5 hours earlier) nervously scanning the surroundings on hind legs.
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A Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) on the lookout for the Owl / Cat / Fox?
The single light source flash makes an interesting shadow there for
only a fleeting thousandth of a second or so.
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This year the Swallows chose our roof ridge as the preferred Swallow youngster feeding perch. This first montage (read this one Left to Right) shows an awkward delivery where the adult flew round and fed the youngster from over it's back.
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As well as the roof ridge, the TV aerial got used once or twice as a Swallow feeding perch.
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Read this montage Right to Left.
The Swallow at the left edge is the disappointed sibling of the one that is fed.
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A hungry Swallow youngster on the roof ridge about to get a very direct meal from Mum or Dad.
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"Open Wide"
Don't both parent and chick have to trust one-another during feeding.
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It looks like a Cranefly makes a meal in it's own right.
Read this montage Right to Left. The juvenile on the left is
about 1 second after the feed and has closed its beak over the
cranefly with the insects wings sticking out of either side of
the beak.
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A Migrant Hawker Dragonfly insect catch in a last moment sweep upwards
with legs formed into the 'net' they employ.
We started out assuming that the prey was fairly stationary in
the air, and intending to montage as 3 images with separating
bars, but it turned out that the wind was blowing them both
along, so this is an accurate montage.
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A Migrant Hawker Dragonfly warming himself in the weak sunshine. We love the light blue colour (Turquoise or Cyan according to taste).
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A female Migrant Hawker Dragonfly turning in the air at just the distance that the camera was pre-set to.
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A bit of sunshine and air temperature of about 19C or more bring out the Dragonflies. This male Southern Hawker was warming itself on a hedge.
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What seems to be a mint Leaf Beetle on a, err, Mint leaf.
It is about the size of a typical Ladybird.
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A Tawny Owl visited again, and this time the prize was a Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse). The Owl spent about 9 minutes on the post, mostly looking at the FB5 photo site as we see here on the right.
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The Tawny Owl grabbing the Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) in a single foot.
He didn't return to the post this time to eat it. He may have eaten
it right there (this camera doesn't repeat while the beam is blocked)
or flown off with it.
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A Pair of Canada geese made a lovely pass to our North flying East, and then turned south to fly down our East boundary.
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Left to right each two birds are from a single frame, all accurately montaged. The birds mostly flew with their wings in synchrony.
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This is an accurate montage of adjoining frames keeping just the birds right and left of the successive images so that one bird is shown wings up, and the other wings down to provide some detail
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One of 'our' Tawny owls appeared first for just these 2 frames at the meadow post. The heap of food was unusually left unfinished by the evening diners. In the second frame the bird is staring intensely at the log of ground level site 5 (FB5) ...
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The Tawny Owl swooped down from the post top onto this hapless
Vole which has here just been caught in the Owl's talons.
The Owl's eyes look strange because many hunting birds cover
their eyes with their Nictitating Membranes at moments when
things 'might go wrong' in the same way that humans screw up
their eyes when something nasty could happen. ...
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The Tawny Owl immediately flew back to the post and arrived back in the same minute with the prize. The post top is probably a more solid dining table than the rain soaked earth by the log. The bird spent the next 5 minutes or so ripping the Vole to pieces and swallowing the parts, leaving nothing of the vole to find next day.
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