Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
The female Sparrowhawk has started to turn up most mornings in the pre-dawn gloom. No idea what she finds.
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Next day another landing, for us emphasising the slender legs for
a bird that catches and kills with the talons.
These lightweight legs undoubtedly help the bird's fantastic speed and
manoeuvrability, but limit the bird to small prey.
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This female Sparrowhawk unexpectedly started making visits most days to this post top an hour before sunrise.
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Next morning the same female Sparrowhawk made 4 visits to the post in 20 minutes.
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A Tawny Owl made a couple of visits about 20 minutes apart. We are not sure that this is the regular owl - the feather divide over the head is different, but may just be a moult variation.
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This lovely Barn Owl spent almost an hour coming and going from the top of the meadow post.
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This lovely Barn Owl spent almost an hour coming and going from the top of the meadow post.
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The dominant Male Pheasant picking through the litter of leaves. Don't miss the iridescent feathers at the neck, inside the 'ear' tufts, over the back and above the legs.
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A Buzzard flies by, lit by the low morning sun.
These are reasonably accurately spaced and positioned.
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Next day this buzzard landed on the Post in the Meadow and stayed for a couple of minutes.
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A more detailed crop of the bird at the left of the montage.
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A sweet moment, whiskers intermingled, for a pair of Fieldmice (Wood Mice) at the bottom of the hedge.
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This montage is built from 4 frames of Fieldmice (Wood Mice) all taken in same half-an-hour.
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A closer view of one of the above Fieldmice (Wood Mice) for a little extra 'tweeness'.
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While looking over a farm field this Red Kite arrived and put on a little aerial display.
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Normally the Reeve's Muntjac Deer flee if we appear in their line of site. But this female 100m away at the other end of this path apparently did not see us standing still, and started to wander toward us. When about 70m from us she seemed to spot us, and quietly turned into one of the many paths leading towards the centre. We quietly wandered after her but she had 'vanished'.
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If I tie myself in a knot, will the fleas go away?
Grey Squirrels may be flea-ridden but it's not for lack of grooming.
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Next morning and for several following days the serious business of the keeping the Drey warm is underway.
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This Grey squirrel is probably quite excited to find a whole Hazelnut.
As Vegans we eat lots of nuts and the Squirrels enjoy the inevitable waste.
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The sweet fluffy Grey Squirrel showing another aspect of it's behaviour.
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We absolutely have NOT 'turned up the colour' on this incredible Magpie tail.
Red, Orange and Yellow form a tiny patches near the tip, but Green and Blue are
strong and patches tend to Indigo and maybe even 2 patches of Violet.
All created by microscopic structures in the bird's feathers.
Mnemonics for Rainbow colours in English:
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This Tawny Owl landed in this perch with back to camera, and 3 minutes later the bird looks about to pounce onto some poor critter on the ground below. Fieldmice (Wood Mice) and Voles visit the base of the feeder to eat tiny fragments of peanut the birds drop from the feeder.
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A somewhat arbitrary collection of Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) images taken over two nights.
A culinary delight for the Owls?
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A Fallen Cow Parsley stem allows this study in symmetry.
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This Red Kite was flying over the fields to our South West is defending itself intermittently from the Rooks and Gulls. They want to win the Kite's prize of what looks to us like a male Blackbird clasped in the talons.
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A Red Kite flying by shown in accurate positions at 7 fps (based on power poles out of this crop).
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This gorgeous Barn Owl only stayed for about a minute.
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This Barn owl arrived for a few minutes hunt from the Meadow Post.
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The local 'Apple vanishing' trickster.
This apple vanished into the badger over 7 minutes.
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Another apple vanishes - this time in a Male Reeve's Muntjac Deer.
It looks like as a single mouthful that he subsequently chewed on for a couple of minutes.
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Here we see our (still only one) female Pheasant showing us her re-growing tail. One of a pair of falling leaves is casting it's shadow onto her side as she walks by.
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The male Pheasant has now re-grown his tail and proudly displays that it can now reach right out of the top of the camera frame.
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What may be the last Butterfly we see this year, sunning itself on an Autumn leaf.
We assumed that these overwintered as adults like several other resident
butterfly species, checked, and found that:-
Speckled Wood - There are 2 - 3 generations a year and the
butterfly can overwinter as either a caterpillar or as a pupa.
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One or more House Sparrows have turned up in recent days for a Wash-and-Brushup' in this plant saucer. Only in the last 5 years have we seen more than one or two House Sparrows a year, while we have a breeding population of Tree Sparrows.
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This Red Kite makes an appearance, shown here turning over about 2 seconds.
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This Buzzard makes an appearance, shown here turning over about 1.5 seconds.
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A visit from a Barn Owl that lasted almost 20 minutes was unusually active, changing position between most frames (45 seconds apart). Here is a selection.
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Another frame of this lovely bird.
The symmetry of the wings frame the bird like Gothic columns.
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This Badger walked down the mound and then stopped at the bottom in this squatting but alert position for about a minute. There was no cause obvious in subsequent photos.
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A few hours later this badger wandered into the end of the 'orchard' and lay down to chew into one of the spoiled windfall apples. Lying down means the front paws are free to grip the food and that is exactly what is happening here.
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The Badger sett hidden in the farmers crop now has 4 major entrances, this being the biggest
You can assess the size from the UK size 9 shoes top left.
It appears that Sett can be spelled with one or two t's.
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This Red Kite seemed quite oblivious to our presence, so we got well over 100 pics to pick through. A Wonderful bird - do enjoy these.
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A Red Kite flies almost overhead.
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As the Red Kite departed a young Lombardy Poplar tree adds a little autumn colour.
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This immaculate fox spent 10 minutes rooting through the leaf litter at the woodland site. Here the start (left) and end of the visit.
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A single Tawny Owl visit during a week.
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An unexpected mini-drama over 3 minutes. As the fox arrives (top left) this Polecat decides to enter the Rabbit Warren in this mound (top right). The Polecat disappears into the mound for a couple of minutes as the fox wanders past the hole. The next time we see the Polecat is as it is leaving the hole 2 minutes later, with the fox watching it from the bottom left of the mound.
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An elegant Great Tit poses on a convenient Fir cone
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A Blue Tit stands on the stone looking up at we know-not-what.
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A montage of 3 images of a pair of Fieldmice (Wood Mice) over about half an hour.
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An early morning splash of colour in the sky got us out into the cold to watch the dawn and sunrise.
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We had both noticed a few specks on our spectacles. 'and lo' a rainbow appeared while the rim of the sun was still not visible. The bow therefore started and ended at right angles to the horizon. To start with the bow lacked it's upper section - here are the west and north ends, looking strange in the orange early light.
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Again at the north end, as the east end faded, the bow became a 'double' visible on the right looking really strange in the now rising sunlight.
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In odd protected corners of the plot Mallow flowers are having a last 'go' before the first severe frost finishes them off. Enjoy the shadow of the stamens.
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Fungi have been growing all year underground, and as the days shorten and cool Fungi fruiting bodies tend to replace the final flowers for the year. This handful of fresh Shaggy Ink Cap fungi has appeared in the same place, and about the same time, as last year. Unfortunately 3 days later they got inadvertently flattened during all day safety maintenance work on the 11kV overhead cables, but more were emerging a few days later
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A few days after a Buzzard visited the woodland site, this one unexpectedly made a visit to the edge of the Round Pond at mid-day.
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Here is what we thought would be our 'traditional' single autumn visit by a Polecat. This one was 2 minutes before midnight at the hedge bottom.
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Just before dawn 30 hours later we catch another (or maybe the same) Polecat streaking through the meadow site.
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While watching from about 100 metres away, this buzzard flew from further away to land on this cross-bar and start hunting in the evening sunlight.
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