Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
Long-tailed Tits are one of our favourite birds. Here a little 'wash and brush up' outside the living room window.
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From the outside of the house we can just see the Long-tailed Tit's nest snuggled in the freshly growing Ivy. It is made of an amazingly light but strong combination of moss and spider web
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A wonderfully pristine badger attracted by the remains of the last 'baiting' pass.
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This long-tailed Tit has a contented 'wash and brush up'
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'Wash and brush up' complete, the pristine bird sits quietly on the perch
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Here we see that there is a sort of 'hood' arrangement over the eye.
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We noticed that this Long-tailed Tit kept flinching and we finally realised that it flinched each time it was struck by a raindrop in the what seemed to us no more than drizzle.
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Look at me!
The bird spent several seconds hanging by one claw for reasons we
can only imagine. The smearing on the glass is where the ivy rubs
on the glass only cleaned the day before. We didn't want to cut
away such a good photo opportunity!
When included as part of our 'Weekly Assortment' a correspondent suggested
that the bird is collecting spider web it uses to build the nest.
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This Long-tailed Tit looking at the hazy creatures on the other side of the window. It is perched on some dead Ivy that had started to invade the gutters and other items in a mini-extension that used to be a garage.
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We seem to see Polecat once or twice a year.
The edge of frame crop in the camera makes us pleased we got the face at all!
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A male Orange Tip butterfly perched on some fresh Blackberry leaves.
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The Fieldmice (Wood Mice) are not doing much leaping about at the moment, but the Grey Squirrels seem to be filling in for the moment. This pair (genuine single frame) looks more like an aerial ballet!
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The Grey squirrels continue to show us their 'aerial ballets'
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Anybody fancy a pair of Grey Squirrel Bookends?
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This Song Thrush seems to have usurped the normal singing post of the male Blackbird. The Blackbird simply uses another tree / post / aerial - anything to get him high!
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Coming through the hedge from the back the Roe Deer took this lovely portrait. The leg at the left is the Deer's right front, the bent leg is the left front, and the out-of-focus leg near the head is the rear left.
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Next morning the Roe Deer wandered over the mound ( pond spoil heap) for a few minutes.
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A hungry fox slightly crouched a few metres from the active Rabbit hole in this mound under the bottom (remaining) step. This is around sunrise - the fox undoubtedly hoping an incautious young Rabbit will appear to provide his 'supper'.
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'Stealth' cameras are usually totally ignored by the wildlife, but foxes do seem to notice them sometimes. Most of the cameras make a tiny click with they take a picture changing between daylight to IR light (adding or removing a filter) and we think that the foxes fabulous hearing detects this. These 3 consecutive images about 3 seconds apart show the fox noticing something, but deciding it was 'harmless' and going back to feeding.
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A Barn owl landing with a lovely view of the top of the open wings as well as enough of the face to be satisfying. The Owl stayed for less than 90 seconds
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After most of the stream of workers have gone home from the 'Farm' some Hares may dare to come out. This one spent a minute or two on the grass until late leaver (coming along the road to the right) disturbed this browsing Hare back into the safety of the crop on the left.
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Just after the Hare was 'flushed' a call from some open grass on the other wide of the hedge announced the presence of this single Grey Partridge. It is probably a male but are not sure.
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When we lifted a sheet of corrugated iron this Shrew dashed
across the front and then moved to the back and buried itself
under the leaves. At about 4 fps this montage is a little
'adjusted' to stretch it horizontally, but you should get the
idea.
Aren't Shrew eyes tiny even for the size of the animal - a life
lived mostly by touch and smells.
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Another Green Woodpecker 'fail' - unless you want a clear view from the back!
Crickey - what vivid colours - we have NOT 'wound them up'.
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A female Blackbird with what looks like dried grass stems she needs to make that nest a bit softer and warmer. We saw near identical behaviour 24 hours later at the same place.
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Wow - that is a big piece of carrot for a tiny mouse, and we suspect that it may be being more dragged than carried.
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The female Mallard ducks seem to be either feeding or bathing whenever we see them. At the feeding sites she is usually squired by an attentive male doing guard duty. Both of these are fresh out of a pond full of Duckweed.
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The female Mallard ducks seem to be either feeding or bathing whenever we see them. At the feeding sites she is usually squired by an attentive male doing guard duty. What a strange juxtaposition.
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The female Mallard ducks seem to be either feeding or bathing whenever we see them. At the feeding sites she is usually squired by an attentive male doing guard duty.
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Starling are now well underway nesting in the loft space. While it is funny to watching birds trying to maneuver a long stick in the 'broadside' position, this bird repeatedly carries sticks at one end so they will swing back to go through the hole.
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This Starling has collected a couple of Catkins from male Black Poplars to add to the nest. Female black poplars may be extinct in the UK as they apparently produce a disagreeable odour, and only males were planted in the trees heyday.
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This Grey squirrel was nibbling fruit from the inside of this piece of apple peel, which it then discarded.
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This Grey squirrel is crawling along the edge of the log that either it or something else has rolled over exposing some food stuck under it. Not something we remember seeing before.
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The Sparrowhawk (bottom) looks up at the squawking Rook above and decides to make a trajectory change - away from the threat!
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This cormorant in flight happened to be near a well defined airliner contrail which provides a 'static' reference that allows re-construction of accurate spacing. We are not fond of Airliner contrails (which sometimes veil the whole otherwise clear sky) but this one (bottom right) was at least 'useful'.
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This year the ruts made by the farmer's sprayer are almost devoid of crops or weeds and make a fine 'playground' for the Hares. We spotted these two Hares 'messing about along the ruts. We assume that we are seeing a male chasing a female and attempting to 'hop on-board'.
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The pair of Hares continued chasing about, sometimes disappearing up ruts running at right-angles to these. Finally the chased Hare turned left up a rut and the chaser just stopped and sunned itself
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Along our paths we see lots of Forget-me-not flowers emerging. We sometimes see this mix of blue and pink flowers on the same head. A little web search discovers that most of this species produce Pink flowers that quickly fade to blue. Indeed the bottom flower still has a tinge of pink.
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Of Two short Tawny owl visits this week this visit unusually catches the departure
very nicely.
It was not startled into flight by the flash
which occurred once it is already in flight.
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After yesterdays aggressive Grey squirrels, here we see their more appealing side.
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After yesterdays aggressive Grey squirrels, here we see their more appealing side.
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Grey squirrels really can be a bad-tempered lot.
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Grey squirrels really can be a bad-tempered lot.
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Grey squirrels really can be a bad-tempered lot.
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One gorgeous Robin with broad Brood patch looks at us hopefully from a leafing beech branch. On the sunlit eye you can see the brown iris.
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A Male Mallard duck flies by making his soft quack as he goes. Those lovely colours will soon be moulted away into the summer 'eclipse'.
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A Male Mallard duck flies by making his soft quack as he goes. Those lovely colours will soon be moulted away into the summer 'eclipse'.
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The two Mallard Drakes chasing one (female) Duck is a fairly common sight. This skyful of ducks is an accurate montage of 6 sequential frames of the action. The female ends at the lower left and is the lowest bird for the previous 5 images.
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A Jackdaw flew across our path carrying a wad of soft brown material in the beak.
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The Jackdaw unexpectedly landed on an 11kV power line right in front of us and we could see that the load was probably animal hair to provide comforts to the nest, wherever it might be.
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A pair of Mallard ducks saw us approaching 'their' pond. He wandered into the Iris fronds to the left, while she stood for a moment watching us watching her before she too waddled into hiding. Enjoy the lovely Turquoise speculum.
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A Pair of rooks flying together - from and to we know not where.
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The Goldfinches never really went away this winter, but we are noticing small groups of them regularly now, twittering away in a relaxing re-assuring chorus. This one perched near the tip of a blossoming twig.
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