Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
A mid-afternoon visit caught out this Hare hiding in the crop edge. He/she streaked along the edge of the crop, turned first left onto the farm road, and ran down the road to disappear behind the weeds. This is alternate frames (the odd numbers) at about 6 fps
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A different montage, just as accurate, from the even numbered frames, happening to catch more of the Hare in mid-leap.
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Here is the Hare after turning left onto the concrete road
bounding along. The camera is now running much more slowly and
irregularly as it has to save the photos already taken.
The obvious colour discontinuity between the
two on the right is NOT the join but a genuine discontinuity of
real life junction of new and 15 year old concrete!
 01-05 of 20 (impression montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
After the last frame above frames 6 to 10 were excessively random, but the frame rate then became more regular and allowed this approximately accurate montage of the hare disappearing from view.
 11-20 of 20 (approx montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
This hungry Fox just after 4 a.m. after a very similar visit 6 hour earlier.
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We first thought this huge insect (22mm body - almost an inch long) must be some sort of Hornet. Finding no matches in our Dog-eared ID books an expert came good with the ID of a 'Hornet Hoverfly', not a Hornet but the largest member of those little creatures that hover in front of you in the sunshine. It was obviously feeding on the Teasel flowers, but was a little torpid in the early morning chill.
 with 22mm body length on teasel flowers (crop 2)(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
The Hornet Hoverfly made short little flights around the teasel head to find fresh florets to feed from.
 (22mm body) taking off from teasel flowers (accurate montage)(r+mb id@576).jpg)
The tree stump is about 20m from the nearest of the corn crop which has suffered from lack of rain and has already turned gold. Either the Grey Squirrel brought this corn head here to eat it, or it found one that something else has dropped. Our whole perimeter is littered with part eaten corn heads and piles of chaff left by squirrels, Rabbits, small birds & no doubt many other creatures.
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A young Rabbit stepping over the log.
We shall be looking out for the Silver Blaise
white spot on the forehead.
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A pair of Small heath butterflies mating on a grass stem. They often fly about in this configuration - we had to wait for them to land to get this image.
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This Peacock Butterfly has it's proboscis clearly inside the solitary remaining flower at the top of this teasel head.
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A fox on the hunt at the bottom of hedge site. We have views of a similar (possibly the same) Fox at both of the other ground level sites on the same night.
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We got 3 Sequential images in silent Infra-Red (separated by a few seconds) of this fox crouched nearly motionless - waiting for his supper to walk by :-(
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A glorious show of feather colour as the young Magpie misjudges his landing spot and probably fell off the front and went round to try again or go somewhere else.
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We have seen a few Harlequin Ladybirds in the last few years, but this
year there are hundreds. They come in a
bewildering range of appearances - here are 25 of our own pics showing
only some of the variety including some still shedding their larval skins.
Note: Not to scale.
The best identification page we know of is at
http://www.harlequin-survey.org/recognition_and_distinction.htm
Click on the pictorial table of insects to see them in larger size.
They are an invasive species, and some people think it is right
to kill them on sight - we don't. If you take this approach
though, be very careful that they ARE harlequins and not some
unusual UK species as others have unfortunately managed.
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This image of Mr and Mrs Blackbird is a genuine unadjusted frame. Parental duties finished for the year, they spend some time feeding together.
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This sunbathing male Blackbird wasn't pleased to see us, and soon disappeared into the hedge behind.
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Standing on the edge of a flat roof over this male Blackbird has found a probably slightly under-ripe Sloe (the Blackthorn berry) in the adjacent hedge.
 in beak (crop)(r+mb id@768).jpg)
A capricious cloud of midges caught by this female Chaffinch triggering the camera as she aerobraked to land
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Here is the cloud of midges in more detail.
When you are trying to stop them getting into your mouth or biting, you
think of them as formless nuisances, but you can just see here that they
are properly formed little insects.
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We think this Brown Hawker must have been hunting something we can't see - they use their legs as a sort of 'net' to snare insects in flight. Read the sequence from left to right - this stuff is all too quick for our eyes to catch the detail.
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This Brown Hawker Dragonfly was flying into the strong wind giving us a much closer spacing in this accurate montage. The flight appeared level to the eye, but you can see it wasn't!
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Flying across the wind keeping approximately the same distance from us before turning towards us. Here is part 1 of the sequence.
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Flying across the wind keeping approximately the same distance from us before turning towards us. Here is part 2 of the sequence.
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A walk down the edge of the crop to our north where humans rarely go (expect disguised in tractors), this Dunnock may never have seen a close-up human on foot before, and didn't know that it was supposed to be frightened of us. We stood still while it sang only a couple of metres away at a high pitch right at the top edge of our aging hearing range.
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Here is a Comma Butterfly enjoying a feed on the a Buddleia
flower spike. You can see both sides of the wing - on the left the
underside with the white 'comma', and on the right the brighter
top side.
If you want to buy a Buddleia our experience is that then paler
the colour the more attractive to the insects when they have a
choice - white being our best, but latest to flower.
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Green-veined white Butterflies are fairly uncommon here, so we were pleased to see this pair mating. More next year maybe!
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A pristine Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) nibbling a corn grain in the small hours of the morning. Just how twee can you get?
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We identify this as a Harlequin ladybird still shedding it's larval skin. There were several such insects grouped in a couple of metres of hedge which next day was alive with yellow and black adult Harlequins.
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Here is one of the 'finished' Harlequins in all her smooth and glossy glory. The spot pattern is undoubtedly different - Harlequin Ladybird are unbelievably varied for a single species.
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Who would be a Corvid parent?
Your offspring is bigger than you are and are still demanding food.
Sounds like human teenagers?
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Who would be a Corvid parent?
Your offspring is bigger than you are and are still demanding food.
Sounds like human teenagers?
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This female Kestrel made a nice circle of the house probably using the heat from the dark slates as a mini-thermal.
 01+03+06+08+11+17+20 of 20 (impression montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
This Black-tailed skimmer Dragonfly (an immature male judging by
details visible in the original images, and our first sighting of
this species on our patch) appeared before us, flew
around the pond edge and reappeared on this Iris leaf with mandibles
full of an unfortunate moth. A few minutes later we spotted the
Dragonfly on a spent Buddleia flower head across the pond, and
we moved round to the other side for the final image (hence
different lighting). Blended into the right of the bottom image
is an approximately camera resolution detail from the top right
image.
Times are Top left 09:22, Right 09:24, Bottom 09:31
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A Marbled White Butterfly feeding on a thistle flower.
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Here this Skipper, a type of small butterfly, and two different hoverflies gorge on the nectar of a Thistle flower.
 + marmalade hoverfly on thistle flower (crop)(r+mb id@768).jpg)
5 Hoverflies make a Halo around this Thistle flower.
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An unusual sequence over 3 minutes with the Wood Pigeon showing the threat posture to a distinctly unimpressed Jackdaw.
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An early morning walk sometimes catches some Hares before they get scared off by the first vehicle of the day. This sequence at a slightly variable 5 fps is an accurate montage as this one lolloped diagonally away upon the rumble of the first lorry.
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The Grey Squirrels seated position and those front paws make this uncomfortably like a human would eat something of the same relative scale.
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Very heavy downpours usually send creatures scuttling for cover. This Grey Squirrel looks like it was getting soaked, and used its flexible body to shake the fur dry (well a bit less wet anyway). All those peanuts without having to fight off other squirrels for them must be worth the soaking.
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This Blackbird wasn't too happy to have his hunting expedition interrupted by us pesky humans, but we kept still so he carried on his hunt. When first spotted he had in his beak this Yellow Underwing Moth.
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It seems the Yellow Underwing Moth wasn't enough, and male Blackbird carried on searching the grass and suddenly an extra insect appeared in his beak - it might be a Cranefly. A good meal for hungry youngsters no doubt.
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On the stem of an Iris at the main pond was perched this attractive Spotted Cranefly.
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A Poplar Hawk Moth flying upwards.
The crop of the wing at the bottom is the bottom of the original frame.
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A Ringlet Butterfly, a delicate butterfly even by butterfly standards, is easily recognised by the distinctive rings pattern.
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There are two types of Burnet Moth in the UK (5 and 6 spot) where
you count the spots on one side only. This is a 5 spot.
Should you find a similar coloured moth without all the spots
check out the Cinnabar Moth instead.
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At the beginning of June we photographed this large Drinker Moth caterpillar on a not very attractive garden pot - the first we have spotted one for 9 years.
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A month later in the moth trap we were delighted to find our first ever adult Drinker Moths, a mix of 3 males and 2 females (moth traps normally catch mainly the exploratory males of moth species). Neither female would fly in the 'tunnel', so here is one hanging from a hawthorn twig. Note the absence of frilled antennae that is the male equipment for finding a female.
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A male Drinker Moth in flight. He has his underside and legs turned towards the camera - moths can do amazing aerial acrobatics!
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Another male (note the Antennae) Drinker Moth in the more conventional flight orientation.
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Our first ever sighting of a Small Elephant Hawk Moth, along with a
(non-small) Elephant Hawk Moth, gave us a chance to compare them.
The Small Elephant Hawk Moth is on the left, and the Elephant Hawk Moth
is on the right.
This is a photo-montage but at exactly the same scale. They are
not just different sizes of the same insect, but distinct species
with similar colour palette but different colour patterns. Both
are quite small 'for hawk moths' - you might imagine that
anything called 'Elephant' was at the large end, but it is the
appearance of the caterpillar as a brown 'trunk' that gives them
their name.
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This Small Elephant Hawk Moth was unusually caught twice in a single photo sequence. The camera fires 3 times at about 7fps to try to catch the insect somewhere in the frame. We have moved the top insect and duplicated the leaf by moving it upwards to avoid overlap.
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The is the Elephant Hawk Moth flying downwards from it's perch.
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For some reason - nature, farming practice or our observance - we are noticing more moths startled from the hedges in daylight and hiding as we walk along. This is a Silver-ground Carpet Moth hiding on a leaf.
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From our archive of 6 years ago, here is an image of a Silver-ground Carpet Moth in flight with a Red Campion flower.
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The Grey squirrel seems to have gone into an attacking frenzy against this poor innocent female Mallard duck just looking for a 'bite' to eat.
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"I said F O O D"
Are 'teenagers' the same regardless of species?
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