Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
A disused concrete track gets plenty of mud dropped on it from the regular farm vehicles working on the adjacent field. Over some weeks rain washes this down to the edge and makes a good (if very slippery) coating to pick up animal paw prints. This is evidence of a badger taking a few steps on the mud before turning towards the cleaner surface that both it and the photographer prefer.
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2 days later a Badger stops by the woodland photo site to see what is left of last night's offering.
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A pristine Comma Butterfly warms itself on a blackberry leaf.
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The Red Admiral has chosen an old piece of Breeze Block that holds shut the broken lid of a tool storage 'bunker' to warm itself in the weak sunshine.
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Spot the Great Tit!
This image also illustrates the damage that flail Cutting of hedges inflicts.
But the hedges soldier on regardless, and any other form of large scale hedge
management is no longer economically viable. We would much rather have these
hedges flailed than see this great wildlife resource removed.
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A male Great Spotted Woodpecker collecting breakfast from the peanut feeder.
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Genuine single frame of what may be mother Grey Squirrel (seen frequently in the last few weeks with active teats) and her two offspring.
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The Grey Squirrels learned how to remove the top of this 'Squirrel Proof' feeder,
so we add a wire tie to hold the wire hangers together to prevent the top being removed.
"OK then, I'll reach in under the lid to get my prize."
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A beautiful Red Kite, beak open and peering at the ground. We can just see that there is something grasped in the talons.
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The Red Kite was biting pieces from the prey (a Rodent judging by the tail) as it flew majestically along.
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By now the Rooks had noticed the Red Kite in 'their' patch and set off in hot pursuit.
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This Tawny Owl (first sighting for weeks) spent 9 minutes hunting from the meadow post. Unusually it moved across the post during it's stay - it might have flown off and returned during the camera's inter-frame 'dead-time' of 45 seconds.
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A Portrait of our only female pheasant visiting at the moment as she quietly steps forward crossing over her legs.
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A male Kestrel was hunting from a perch on an 11kV cable. It stayed at the same spot for at least 10 minutes ignoring us while we crept quietly closer when we left it in peace - he was still there several minutes later as we left the area.
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This Grey Squirrel has decided it doesn't want the Magpie for company. The Magpie is taking off away and to the right (so head invisible) with the tail dragging on the ground.
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The nights are getting chilly - this Squirrel is adding some bedding to the Drey.
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In the dark of the small hours, a Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) feasts on a single corn kernel.
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This Grey Squirrel was happily chomping it's way through the remains of this cooked Corn Cob. The ripening crop around us can also be found as partially eaten whole cobs scattered over our access track
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Robins have done well this year. This little guy was watching us watching him from a rose bush.
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Robins have done well this year.
This little guy was watching us watching him from a rose bush.
Note the delicate grass stem gently pushing into his breast feathers.
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We still seeing occasional House Sparrows. This one is a juvenile moulting to adult, with a trace of yellow at the base of the beak, and quite a lot of downy feathers to replace.
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Another sighting of a House sparrow just after it had a drink
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Just after midnight a Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) is on alert.
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A Grey Squirrel gorging itself on a Blackberry
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Here a Red Kite was rising in the thermal making 'lazy circles in the
sky'.
This montage is built from a continuous sequence of photos at about 7fps (given
a few momentary hesitations near the end when the camera could barely cope) and
we montaged this (about 12 seconds) of flight using clouds for reference. This
is typically every 3rd frame with a few adjustments to overcome obvious
discontinuities.
This seemed like a 'circle' to us at the time, but it is a sort of epicycle like
those needed to make the Ptolemaic Geocentric model of the solar system
approximate reality. How many 'modern' scientific ideas will seem as silly the
future?
We have all 84 images archived if anybody is mad enough to want them.
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The circling Red Kite then flew right overhead as it used it's potential energy to head off south.
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For a few days 3 Red Kites have been frequenting the area on all four sides as harvesting and re-seeding progresses.
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For a few days 3 Red Kites have been frequenting the area on all four sides as harvesting and re-seeding progresses.
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This Speckled Wood Butterfly was a fairly cooperative flyer. These are 3 different flights montaged together. The right view is of the 'top' of the wings while the centre and left images are from below.
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This Red Admiral butterfly was caught circling the Buddleia, but we had seen them over the Water Mint as well and this is what we show the butterfly with.
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This Ichneumon is a parasitic insect, laying eggs in various other insect Pupae.
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A true sign of approaching Autumn is the appearance of Craneflies. This one is a 'whopper' practically filling the camera frame
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The overnight moth trap caught several of these Thorn Moths - we think the Canary-shouldered variety. Here is an interpretation of a series of separate flights.
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Shield Bugs in general are good, if reluctant, flyers. This Forest Bug, unfortunately starting on the white plastic tip of a soft artists paintbrush, unexpectedly took off. These two images we taken about 200mS apart.
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This Fox in good condition is very happy to fill it's mouth with some cooked fruit. Foxes are omnivores, both hunting prey and eating plants and fruit.
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Out first Darter Dragonfly of 2017 is appropriately a 'Common Darter', here perched on the leaves of the Dogwood that dominates the island of the duck-shaped pond looking for something to hunt and something to mate with.
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Oak Galls can be weird but strangely attractive.
Plant galls are usually plant reactions to specialised insects.
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Rough-legged Buzzards are said to be able to hover, and this one was certainly flying very slowly - the image separation is about doubled from 7 fps. The 'Rough Legged' term comes from the legs being covered in feathers almost down to the Talons.
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This female chaffinch has put on her lipstick!
Birds often stain themselves and their droppings with the juices of autumn
fruit.
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A Red Kite with some rodent in it's talons, taking bites from it as it flies along.
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3 Red Kites spent a few days roosting in an Ash tree 150m away, and would be active soon after sunrise
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This Red Kite being pursued by a carrion crow - the crow is just about able to keep up. On another occasion we observed that Jackdaws can't keep up with Red Kites even if the kite is not trying to get away.
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If we keep still the Kites mostly ignore us, as this one flying overhead.
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"I See You"
Apologies to James Cameron's 'Avatar'.
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The buzzard zoomed right overhead.
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The Buzzard made this powered flyby as part of exploring the area.
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Passes by a couple of Cormorants, not as high as usual, gave us a chance for some pics.
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These 4 images are accurately montaged against the clouds - these are big birds that really pick up some speed.
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A new Hoverfly (or Hover-fly) on a Hop Sedge leaf at the Duck Shaped pond. A handsome (and harmless) little life.
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This Moth, another first sighting for us, does not have a common name but we think it is rather pretty.
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A Red Kite was making the characteristic circles while climbing in a thermal. We got the whole of a circle in 76 frames, so at 7 fps it took about 10 second per 'lap'. Trying to rebuild the real positions for 76 images would not show much detail, so here is a selection arranged in a circle. The sequence starts at 10 o'clock, and ends with the slightly smaller image (because higher and further away) at 8 o'clock.
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Several Buzzards were climbing in the same thermal, making their usual aggressive interactions whenever they came close enough.
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Several Buzzards were climbing in the same thermal, making their usual aggressive interactions whenever they came close enough.
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This is a Common Blue Butterfly, for all that her wings are brown. You can see a blue haze of hairs over her body.
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A Peacock Butterfly sunning itself on the clover.
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