Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
One patch of roses along the self-set outside east hedge (mostly Blackthorn with patches of Cherry) is making a lovely show of autumn colours
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One patch of roses along the self-set outside east hedge (mostly Blackthorn with patches of Cherry) is making a lovely show of autumn colours
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One patch of roses along the self-set outside east hedge (mostly Blackthorn with patches of Cherry) is making a lovely show of autumn colours
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Only a few hours after moving this bird-strike Pigeon, this Buzzard found the remains at the woodland site where we saw one months ago. Just this one frame - there was very little meat left on the remains to keep the bird active.
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A Closeup of the Buzzard's head - what a Bird!
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This adult Fox (with a bit of Mange at his rear - all Foxes here seem to get it as they get older) checks out the Pigeons remains but leaves it. There is no meat left worth taking.
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Grey Squirrels are in full-time 'eating' mode. This one female (with really tender looking teats) was working her way over the grass outside our patch eating the single-wing seeds dropped by something like (but isn't) a sycamore tree overhanging both sides of the boundary hedge.
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The sightings of our regular large Raptors (Buzzards, and here a Red Kite) have increased this week. These early morning rich colours are 'un-fudged'.
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One of the close approaches by the early morning Red Kite, unfortunately without the sun lighting the body or underwings.
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More 7-spot ladybirds this year than Harlequin ladybirds, but this is one of the latter walking on the late flowering Ivy.
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Outside a window this huge plant saucer that does duty for a bird bath. Various sizes of stones in the bottom provide nice height perches for different sizes of birds. Here a Blue Tit really enjoyed itself.
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Outside a window this huge plant saucer that does duty for a bird bath. Various sizes of stones in the bottom provide nice height perches for different sizes of birds. Here a Great Tit really enjoyed itself.
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The windfall apples seem to attract an endless stream of visitors. Here a badger shows that it can open it's mouth much more widely than we had imagined it might.
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A lie-down meal for this Badger.
Reminds us of Roman banquets.
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A little sad drama as a Wood Pigeon struck the kitchen window (despite is being
cluttered with a camera, flash on a pole an various plant pots) and dropped dead
onto the grass outside. We moved the sad body to the meadow camera site
expecting a Fox, Badger or Buzzard to take it away, but nothing touched it
for a week.
This Ginger cat takes a look but didn't obviously disturb it.
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Pheasant have no interest in this carrion - here a bird-strike Wood Pigeon.
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This Fox stopped for a look at bird strike Wood Pigeon, but rather surprisingly didn't even try to drag it away. We think this a youngster, and it didn't know what to do?
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The windfall apples attract a Muntjac Deer, Foxes and Badger. For the second time in a week a Badger and a Fox cross paths. It is the Fox that leaves.
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Next evening the Badger spends a few minutes chomping off lumps of apple.
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After midnight on the same night this badger spent 20 minutes at one place presumably finding things to eat. The first 5 images are in exactly the same position, while the last is of the badger leaving as we also notice a mist started to descend.
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Fox nose to the ground at the Woodland site.
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A Fox explores the feeding site, looking down the hole in the ground we shortly afterwards filled in.
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We occasionally see a Weasel through windows just outside the house,
but here we came across one near the middle of the woodland using
the gaps under a storage bunker as a temporary hiding place.
We are used to these creatures fleeing from humans and not re-appearing
but this one kept looking out from various gaps under the bunker.
It finally sprinted across the open ground to the adjacent mound
where it went down a small hole we had not noticed before.
Woodlands are dark - hence the grainy quality of the image on a flash-free
camera.
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The Ginger Cat on 'his' night-time prowl.
We did some research on whether all Ginger cats are 'Toms' (males) as we had
long understood, but we found that only 3 in 4 are male, the Gene being on the X
chromosome and recessive. See Wiki if you don't understand.
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When you see Tits in a tree full of seeds you might think that it what it is after. But they are also looking for insects as you can see in the beak tip.
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Several Black-headed Gulls (in eclipse with just a black spot) were feeding on the recently seeded crop fields. This one almost hovered as it landed, so we have spread the images so you can see it. We tidied up the repetitive background, but left in the bit of vertical stem at the bottom each time so you can see that the bird actually moves very little during its delicate landing.
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We have seen this Shieldbug in previous years on the same bit of wooden fence. The yellow splash of colour is Lichen.
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When you see a Shieldbug on a flat piece of wood you can forget that they are perfectly nimble creatures.
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A seemingly endless supply of Windfall apples attracts lots of Fox visits. Here is a little montage of some of them over 3 days.
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Badgers visit this end of the 'orchard' on most nights to enjoy some of the windfall apples.
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A male Sparrowhawk flashes by the kitchen window perch.
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We see a lot of Grey squirrel threatening one another and other species, but rarely see the teeth buried in another creature - here a Wood Pigeon that didn't take off quite quickly enough. Either the Grey squirrel will have lost it's grip, or the Pigeon will lose a few feathers. We haven't noticed an injured pigeon in the following days.
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A Beautiful Barn Owl graces us with a quarter of an hour visit.
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A long visit to the Kitchen window perch by this Tawny owl gives us a chance to produce this little montage.
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Much more detail of the leftmost image in the above montage.
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A Tawny Owl visits the kitchen window bird table.
The sense beams now runs to the left of the table so the bird
flapping wings on both landing and departure triggered the camera.
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Backwards and Forwards landings of 'our' Tawny Owl.
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Landing successfully accomplished, this Tawny Owl then starts to look really intensely at something to the right - probably a rodent at the meadow camera site.
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A female Migrant Hawker Dragonfly sunning herself in a hawthorn hedge.
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This male Ruddy Darter Dragonfly was flying from stick tip to stick tip as he keeps a look-out for rivals and mates.
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This female Common Darter dragonfly resting on the ground almost vanishes in the dead grass, of which there is still LOTS months after the heatwave.
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For a couple of minutes this Red Kite wheels round us.
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Here over 2 seconds you see the Red Kite 'rolling' to give us views of top and bottom of the wings.
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As the Red Kite departed it glided against the trees by the brook. It wasn't until we built this accurate montage we realised how steeply the bird was descending.
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As the nights get colder Drey maintenance becomes a priority for Grey Squirrels.
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The Conker Harvest by the Grey Squirrels is in full swing. Most of these will be buried to dig up and eat in the winter.
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Conkers Wrapped or Unwrapped - the Grey Squirrel doesn't care.
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'Our' male Pheasant really looks fantastic.
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Over 4 days we found 24 usable images of Fieldmice (Wood Mice) over this site. Here is a little celebration of the best, all broadly where they were when the original frames were taken. The owls will be pleased!
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A little moment of 'togetherness' between a couple of Fieldmice (Wood Mice).
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The same Comma Butterfly, this one highlighting the gorgeous orange colour.
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The same Comma Butterfly, this one highlighting darker underwing and white 'comma'.
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This male Southern Hawker Dragonfly is sunning himself on a stem of great Willow Herb. This is 2 different views of the same individual.
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A male Southern Hawker Dragonfly over the meadow, in among several Migrant Hawkers without obvious conflict.
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In the mid-day sunshine a female Common Darter Dragonfly perches on a dead Blackberry stem. This female is probably past breeding, and hopefully enjoying her last few days before the frosts arrive.
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A male Common Darter Dragonfly surveying the surroundings from the tip of a cut stinging nettle.
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This is a montage of 5 images, at about half second intervals, of a 'knot' of
Canada Geese winging their way. We watched quite a lot of these geese flying to
the south of our patch, turning left (as you see here) and making a wide sweep
to fly in the opposite direction north of our patch.
Is our 100m square a useful landmark for the airborne?
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One frame after the leftmost image in the montage, a closer look at the confusing line of Canada Geese.
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Only later when counting the Canada Geese for the file title did we notice that one of the birds (second from the left) was in fact a Barnacle Goose.
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A closer look at another frame shows the Barnacle Goose below one of the Canada Geese. This is our first sighting of a Barnacle Goose here.
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This Dandelion Clock sparkled in the hazy early morning sunshine. It was only when we looked at this pic on the PC screen that we realised that it was actually frosted. Air temperature was suddenly down to 5C was enough to warrant warm coats and over-trousers.
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A ground mist below a clear blue sky made for some interesting visions. Here the sunlight streams through the hedge trees creating 'star' beams that you sometimes see spread downwards in the sky, but this time sideways and even sloping 'upwards' as a perspective effect.
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A Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) holding a corn grain in it's paws, along with the Leopard slug below it. The Leopard slug to the right is from 3 days earlier (also with a less interesting mouse in the same place as this one so not shown) and was bigger and differently marked to the later individual.
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From 14 images of Fieldmice (Wood Mice) over 3 days we build this little collection.
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This Buzzard glided silently overhead.
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The Red Kite flying into a headwind, flapping rather than a relaxed glide.
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The Red Kite flying into a headwind, flapping rather than a relaxed glide, disappears behind the trees.
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An extended visit by a Tawny Owl - the only visit in the week.
The divide at the top of the head looks wider than our normal visitor,
but may be just moulting.
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