Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
An hour after midnight a badger manages to trigger the camera for a lovely full length shot with beautifully dry and nicely groomed fur.
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What looks like the same badger 2 days later, but this time with wet fur, takes his portrait at the woodland site.
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Is this Jackdaw taking advantage of the pre-occupied Grey Squirrel
for a little revenge for how often bird can't get near the nuts?
A few minutes later it looked like the Squirrel was still 'in possession'.
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A Rook looking not at all pleased with the corvid mostly out of frame to the right.
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After spending a few minutes hunting from a Black Poplar by the roadside this female Kestrel was hovering to our east facing into biting north wind.
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Suddenly the female Kestrel made a controlled dive straight to the ground at the base of this hedge. This is at about 6 fps, so this is just under 2 seconds of motion.
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Some more detail from the middle of the female Kestrel's dive.
What a fabulous bird!
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Our first sighting of a Moorhen on the main pond for months was a relaxed bath and then preen on the bank 23 metres from the house.
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Our first sighting of a Moorhen on the main pond for months was a relaxed bath and then preen on the bank 23 metres from the house.
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Two visits from the pristine barn owl without leg ring on successive nights. The first visit was an active hunt for 11 minutes
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This visit was a most unusual stay for over two and half hours.
The still camera controller stopped photographing after the first
hour (assuming a fault) but a look at the CCTV showed that it
stayed for 160 minutes of apparently staggering inactivity!
These 4 images are the arrival (right) and then typical images
from the first hour. We are fairly sure that the bird arrived
fully 'tanked up' with voles and/or mice and just quietly dozed
on our post digesting his fill. No sign of any owl cast next day :-(
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2 different Fieldmice (Wood Mice) 2 days apart on a (slightly stretched) stone.
Sorry - couldn't resist this twee montage.
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A Dunnock watches us expectantly hoping for corn to magically land on the ground!
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What we assume is a family of 4 Buzzards in a thermal moved near to our patch (but mostly rather high). One of them was much lower than the others but still circling. Just an impression here.
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After a prolonged absence we were delighted by this early morning Hare running towards us as we paused on a disused farm track. After a few seconds the animal stopped to give us a look over.
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The Hare finally decided to lollop down the slope of the oil-seed rape crop.
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Quite a lot of snowdrops are on the Pond bank now that everything that might eat them thinks they taste awful or give you a tummy ache.
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Grey Squirrels move about in trees with so little apparent difficulty that it is unusual to catch one having to put some effort into climbing back up this thin branch after eating the buds and catkins further down.
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Some of the smaller daytime visitors making the most of the corn and other seeds.
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Some of the smaller daytime visitors making the most of the corn and other seeds.
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These two creatures were photographed just 4 minutes apart, and we often see Rabbits and Fieldmice (Wood Mice) coexisting in peace. So here is a fun but accurate montage that also contrasts the difference in size.
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A little Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) soon after Sunset.
The camera flash (mounted separately and off to one side and higher than
the camera) is casting a shadow of the Mouse's tail, which is sticking out
towards the camera, on the mouse's body.
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These next 3 images of the Barn Owl was for a visit of exactly 90 seconds - the camera cycles at 45 seconds and caught the landing and (by luck) the departure.
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A 5 minute stay by the Barn Owl.
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A very short stay by the Barn Owl, or maybe just a flyby.
The red colour at the base of the beak is clearly fresh blood
when viewed at camera resolution. Owls are elegant and beautiful
creatures, but they live by killing.
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After weeks without a sighting of Barn Owl, one of the locals made regularly nightly visits for 4 days, always the 'pristine' Barn Owl without a leg ring. We have built each visit into it's own montage annotated with the length of the visit.
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After weeks without a sighting of Barn Owl, one of the locals made regularly nightly visits for 4 days, always the 'pristine' Barn Owl without a leg ring. We have built each visit into it's own montage annotated with the length of the visit.
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In a few minutes in the middle of the day the fast moving clouds, weather front and other events gave us some unusual cloud events. First some Cirrus cloud with an unexpected band of colours in horizontal stripes like a section snipped from a Rainbow, but entirely wrongly positioned for a rainbow.
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Here we have the shadow of a Airliner Contrail falling on the cirrus clouds. We had always assumed that Cirrus was so high this couldn't happen, but a little research (c/o Google/Wikipedia) finds that:-
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The detail of a Sundog to the left of the sun which was hidden behind cloud. Unusually, we can just see the Green and Blue tinged to the left.
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This Sundog was changing quickly - here is a view including the position
of the sun at a similar mirror position to the Sundog but hidden by the cloud
on the RIGHT side of the frame.
Marie sees this as a cloud with it's light Sabre out attacking the Sundog!
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The mostly closed eyes in this landing Tawny owl (a larger crop of the top left of the following montage) really looks like 'she' has been playing with 'Mummy's' slate grey Eye shadow!
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4 moments from this 32 minute stay by a Tawny Owl.
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Half an our earlier the Tawny Owl stayed for 23 minutes. Here are 4 moments from this first visit.
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We are pleased to see so many Tree Sparrows about. They breed here using Great Tit boxes. Here are 7 (of at least 9 in this group) scattered around the log.
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A Robin defending his patch just after midday.
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2 loving Robins (the only way you would see them not fighting at this time of year) with a Bluetit acting as Duenna - NOT.
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A strange grey back for our strange Blond plumaged male Pheasant!
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Our blonde plumages male pheasant stepping elegantly over the log.
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Many male birds (and other species) grow ridiculous items in
the breeding season to attract the 'girls' who see how fit the male
must be to cope with it. Surely this tail will impress his ladies?
Whether the unusually light feathers are an attraction or not we don't know.
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Who's been pecking through the mud then? A detail of our light coloured male Pheasant's head and back
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Here is a Bluetit about as iridescent as they ever get.
This bird also has an extensive brood patch and it is only just February.
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We notice that many of the Bluetits have well developed brood patches already.
Brood patch? A strip of thinly insulated skin on the breast which is pressed
against eggs, and later chicks, to keep them warm.
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Of about 600 camera images we caught only this single instance of food visible in her beak - in this case right at the tip. We have no idea what the muddy prey might have been, but it had vanished inside the beak only a fifth of a second later!
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Green Woodpeckers often push their whole beaks deep into the soft soil/mud to find their prey. From what we can see they manoeuvre about to find items with their beak & tongue, and pull them into the beak while still underground.
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Green Woodpeckers often push their whole beaks deep into the soft soil/mud to find their prey. From what we can see they manoeuvre about to find items with their beak & tongue, and pull them into the beak while still underground.
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Near the end of her feed we get a glimpse of the female Green Woodpecker's tongue, probably cleaning out the sticky muddy mess inside her beak!
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A female Green Woodpecker was preening on the side of this tree sheltered from the wind.
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The female Green Woodpecker had moved down to the bole of this (years ago) pollarded Willow tree, and then took off. There is too much wood around the bole to open the wings fully so the bird sort of 'glided down' before picking up flight.
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The female Green Woodpecker flew straight to an old post but only stayed for a minute or two. This might be how you expect to see a woodpecker, and for most types in the UK this is true. But the Green Woodpecker spends most of it's time feeding on ants and similar on the ground, which is where she went next, quite near the bottom of this pole.
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The Buzzard paid a visit to the flimsy pole which supports the IR sender box used for the meadow post, but some 20m further away from the camera. Happening to see the bird we realigned the camera and grabbed a few photos of the bird awkwardly perched on the top of the pole.
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The Buzzard launched itself to something on the ground some 20m to the right complete obscured by trees. The camera caught the departure but making a montage from the varying quality of the images was tricky. This is the first impression. You can just see the pole bending as the bird pushed off.
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Here is the second montage from the first 3 successive frames that fails to show the lowering of the Talons, but has more consistent quality. Take your pick!
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NO - this didn't happen!
A couple of hours apart during the night these 2 visitors photographed themselves
at either end of the camera frame. So we have brought them together to show you
the entirely different body builds of these two night scavenger/hunters.
Both Badger (left) and this Fox seem to be in good health.
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Handbrake Turn?
We really can't work out how the rabbit managed to get it's
legs into this tangle. Oh to be that flexible. Was it making
an escape from the fox at one minute past midnight?
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Over 6 minutes these 3 different birds 'posed' in different position along the log and we couldn't resist showing you them all at the same scale.
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Everywhere we go there is a Robin waiting expectantly for some corn.
This bird, with no human present, is bending his ankles ready for launch.
If you don't believe that's the 'ankle' at the left bend of the leg, the
'knee' is hidden under the feathers. See
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_anatomy
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One of our Tree Sparrows - one of probably about a dozen around the site at the moment.
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A Bluetit - one of dozens all over the site.
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This migrant female Blackbird (with 'black' beak) lands on the tree-stump. We have seen this individual with a white feather tip in her wing several times. This moment looks like she is still regaining balance giving her an atypical position.
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We have not seen our normal male pheasant for a few days, and suddenly this snazzily marked individual has appeared at all three ground level sites. The head is grey with white edges - is this avian Haute Couture?
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The Fieldmice (Wood Mice) continue their food collection and caching. This is two images 45 minutes apart of we think the same mouse with corn gripped in the lips. The tiny mouth is probably full of 1 or 2 more of them.
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Some Fieldmice (Wood Mice) visiting over a couple of days, we couldn't decide which ones to show you, so we montaged 4 that didn't overlap!
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A Dunnock and a female Chaffinch having a little set-to.
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At about 1 hour intervals what looks like the same Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) took these 3 consecutive (left to right) images of himself passing over the log, each time with food in the mouth presumably being taken away to cache.
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