Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
Little Owls (actual species name) are well known to be seen around in the daytime, but here as the day finishes this Little Owl arrived to stay for a few minutes. Even over 5 minutes you can see the background darkening a little left to right.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
It is pure luck for our automatic cameras to catch a takeoff (top) but 2 minutes after this Tawny Owl launched from the meadow post what we assume is the same bird landed outside the kitchen window (bottom left). Another 2 minutes on something triggered the camera back at the meadow post, and this must have been the Owl breaking the sense beam quite close to the house because the flash-light has produced a giant shadow of the Owl on the ground (bottom right).
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
The Privet Flowers are out, and this Small Tortoiseshell butterfly is making the most of the nectar.
.jpg)
A Speckled Wood Butterfly as we normally see them, wings at least partially open.
.jpg)
A Hare sprints across the cut grass inside the bend on the Farm Road. This represent one and a half second of action - boy can they run fast!
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
In the early morning 2 escaped black goats were wandering around the surrounding farm and our patch. Here a Goat and a local Carrion crow checking each other out.
 black long tailed wandering over pineham farm before returning to brook 3 of 9 (crop)(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Here the escapee goats are checking US out!
 black long tailed wandering over pineham farm before returning to brook 8 of 9 (crop)(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Looking at Goats you notice the strange horizontal slit eyes.
Here is a detail.
Don't the ear tags look horrible :-(
 black long tailed wandering over pineham farm before returning to brook 7 of 9 (crop head and eye detail)(r+mb id@432).jpg)
A lovely grumpy looking Robin youngster - the first of 2018.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
An elegant female Pheasant just a few centimetres from touchdown.
.jpg)
The Magpie (foreground) photo-bombs what may be a Grey Squirrel vs. male Pheasant moment in the background.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
A female Beautiful Demoiselle Damselfly keeping still long enough for a photo. These creatures (male, female and both Beautiful and Banded variants) have a characteristic & we think delightful fluttering flight.
.jpg)
What we believe to be a MALE Beautiful Demoiselle Damselfly. The problem with the ID is that while the band is too wide and diffuse at the edges to be a Banded Demoiselle and the clear section more tinted than expected, the dark diffusion is just not as extensive as a normal 'Beautiful'. The iridescent blue wing veins do seem to be conclusive though. Maybe an immature male, said to have lighter colouring than the mature.
 (crop)(r+mb id@768).jpg)
From another image of the same individual here is the detail of the 'Anal Appendage' used to grip the female (and different for each species) that looks more like that of the 'Beautiful' than the 'Banded'.
 (anal appendage detail)(r+mb id@288).jpg)
Only our second Tawny Owl sighting at the hedge-bottom site (the first earlier this year) again catches the Owl swooping in on Prey. We don't know if it caught anything, but a Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) is making a speedy exit on the other side of the stone.
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
A week later and 15 minutes after a not very interesting 3 minute visit to the Meadow post (not shown) we get this Tawny Owl landing outside the kitchen window at 4 a.m.
.jpg)
A Grey Squirrel (in shadow facing left in the middle of the picture) chases off a female Pheasant. The Surprise for us was the feather-less underbelly of the Pheasant. A little research indicates this is a brood patch (bare skin to be put in contact with eggs to warn them) that we see so often on the brooding partner of small birds.
 attacking pheasant female showing brood patch(r+mb id@768).jpg)
The first Meadow Brown this year, enjoying a Buttercup.
Love the contrast of Orange, dark (shaded) and sunlit yellow.
.jpg)
This adult male Green Woodpecker stopped off at the meadow post for a late afternoon preen followed by a shake-out of his feathers.
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
A Grey Partridge skimming over the Oil-seed Rape crop.
.jpg)
Our first sighting of this Peahen (female of Peacock) was a 'what's that'
glimpse in the dark of the woodland. But she visited some of our
automatic cameras over the next couple of days. Here we get a view
of her lovely head and plumes.
Comment for overseas readers - Peacocks are not UK resident species - they need
supplementary feeding in the winter at the very least. They are kept as
prestige adornments in stately homes and the like, but need feather trimming
to stop them flying off!
 and pheasant female head detail (crop 2)(r+mb id@576).jpg)
So Pheasant females (left) and the Peahen quietly coexist despite the substantial difference in size.
.jpg)
Next day the Peahen took this portrait at the 'meadow' camera site.
Our camera kits just aren't set to include the whole of birds of this size!
.jpg)
Next day we spotted the male Pheasant crossing the Farm Road, followed
purposefully by the Peahen. Shortly afterwards we heard the Pheasant make his
characteristic call. 6 Hours later a trail cam caught him hovering
by her as she fed on a mound inside our patch.
Surely he doesn't think she is just a jumbo sized female Pheasant?
She has probably then returned to her likely owners a couple of miles away.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Outside the Study Window at least 7 Blue Tit youngsters were being fed peanut fragments from the feeders hanging below. They soon vanished into the orchard to find more natural food.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
"Put food in here"
This is a Great Tit, one of 3 facing us on the bird table.
.jpg)
This enterprising Great Tit decides to wait where it can get first opportunity for the food.
.jpg)
Its so easy for Hares to hide in the now metre or more high Oil-seed Rape crop that we rarely get a glimpse. So this one unhurriedly lolloping away from us across one of the outright dead patches in the crop took our fancy. The legs look such a mess that it's seems a wonder they don't get tangled. This montage shifts the Hare to the left each 140mS step. In the 2nd and 3rd images from the right you can see that the Hare has a torn ear.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
The Common Blue Damselflies continue to decorate the weeds. This is one of the 3 forms that the female can take - called either 'Typical' or 'Drab' according to which reference book.
.jpg)
A male Common Blue Damselfly warming in the sun will soon be off looking for a girl! Unlike the females, the males have just this one form.
.jpg)
Every year the front of the house erupts in these self-sown vivid orange flowers called 'Fox and Cubs'. The flower clumps are only about 4cm across, but make up for it as little 'flames' burning in the sunshine.
.jpg)
The white Iris is a cultivar, but no less attractive than the yellow original. Three pairs of opposed flower petals at 120 degrees are interspersed with single petals to make a striking appearance.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Every year we enjoy this little clump of white Foxgloves in a sunless corner growing through a crack in the concrete. Life is determined!
.jpg)
A female Beautiful Demoiselle Damselfly (one of 3 individuals spread over our patch) on the first day of the year warm enough to draw them out.
 (crop)(r+mb id@576).jpg)
A female Beautiful Demoiselle Damselfly (one of 3 individuals spread over our patch) on the first day of the year warm enough to draw them out.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
We know the Speckled Wood butterfly so well, but only when perched with it's wings open. So this one actually puzzled us for a while in a patch of dappled sunlight.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
This less welcome visitor is one of the huge number of Harlequin Ladybird forms, this one with hardly any visible spots. These foreign invaders (since 2004) are here to stay and we will have to get used to them. Down the edge of the stinging nettle leaf you can see the poison loaded needles ready to punish any inadvertant contact.
.jpg)
Mrs. and Mr. Chaffinch one day apart made this mirrored montage irresistible. They are at the same scale - he is just slightly bigger than the female.
 (montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
One of the longer visits by the Tawny owl, starting with quite an active bird but spending the last 4 minutes standing so still that flicking through images on the camera suggested that something might have gone wrong (not shown).
(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
Another night we have 6 short visits. This sequence skips one poorly imaged landing, but includes the final crouched stance. The IR floodlight that lets us see this post on CCTV has failed so we can't have a look to see what the last image was all about.
 making 6 visits to meadow post in 4 hrs 1-3_5-7 of 7 (montage)(r+mb id@1024).jpg)
An early morning walk found this male Reeves Muntjac Deer quietly grazing his way along the bottom of the farm hedge.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
This zoom on the Deer show his horns as just velvet knobs. We have not seen the Male Reeve's Muntjac Deer with bone antlers now for a couple of weeks, and assume that this is the same individual having shed his antlers and starting to re-grow them.
(r+mb id@432).jpg)
These wonderful wild roses drench several metres around them with their
perfume.
Dog Rose is pleasant but nowhere close in strength.
We recently read that Rose experts say that half of modern roses have no
discernable scent at all - breeders concentrating only on appearance.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Wind and rain has put paid to the wonderful display of Hawthorn Blossom, but left a carpet of fallen petals beneath each bush/tree.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
Fallen Hawthorn petals showing the individual fallen petals.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
We often leave the 'bait bowl' covered by the corn bag if we go for a walk
before scattering the bait. On return we often disturb a squirrel helping
itself, but this one is standing on the bag and has lifted several items from
the bowl beneath, probably tried a bit, and then dropped them down on the top of
the bag to look for more. She continued feeding until we were only a couple of
metres away.
Yes - this is our front garden - dead nettles, thistles and rank grass :-(
But yes, the wildlife love it :-)
.jpg)
Ouch!
Grey Squirrels are sometime vicious little creatures - we wouldn't want those
claws on our face.
.jpg)
A Grey Squirrel 'Ups' the male Pheasant.
But at the top edge of the frame just left of centre is the tip of that curved
beak. Maybe the Squirrel will be getting an unwelcome riposte.
.jpg)
The Barn owl made a couple of visits on the same evening. The landing (left image) looks a bit awkward and we think the bird may have been landing with a slight tailwind and overshot a bit - birds usually aim for the 'leading edge' rather than slither over the top.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
45 minutes after the awkward landing, what looks like the same Barn Owl landing much more solidly in the opposite direction, but only staying for one more photo (right then left).
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
A pristine Badger takes his photo just after midnight.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
The dominant male Pheasant quietly stalks through the dappled light.
.jpg)
The male Pheasant in the Buttercups.
.jpg)
The male Pheasant here follows around one of the females. His feathers here are puffed up with excitement - he may be about to make his characteristic leap and call.
.jpg)
A genuine montage at 7fps of a Rook gliding across the crescent moon.
(r+mb id@576).jpg)
A young Rook regards his world complete with those 2 suspicious two-
legs.
The insect to the left of his beak is typical
of daytime photos at the moment - midges are everywhere!
.jpg)
As the Oil-seed Rape crop blossom fades, a Rook on the grass border rasps his call.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
A male Blackbird defends his patch. We know roughly where the pair's nest is, but would have to cut back their defensive brambles for a look, so they stay in peace.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
A juvenile Blackbird shouting for more food!
Don't worry about the milky eye -it's just the nictitating membrane.
.jpg)
The Hawthorn Blossom all over our patch has been outstanding this year - exceeding the density of the earlier cherry blossom.
(r+mb id@768).jpg)
Hawthorn seems mostly to create white flowers, but a few of our plants generate some or mostly pink petals in the same flower clusters.
.jpg)
At last a dozen or so Honey Bees can be found on the Green Alkanet flowers that reliably grow along a section of the access track each year.
.jpg)
This male Reeves Muntjac Deer (with velvet antlers) seems to have had a serious argument with something sharp. Our guess is barbed wire or some other man-made hazard. Unless we find him lying sick there is nothing we can do.
.jpg)
2 weeks later we caught this moment of the same male Reeve's Muntjac Deer. Although the body is half out-of-frame we can see just a line in the fur where the serious cut has healed without any apparent problems. Phew!
.jpg)