Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
Foxes are among our most usual night visitors.
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Reeve's Muntjac Deer are among our most usual night visitors. This female is called a Doe.
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Badgers are among our most usual night visitors. This one is particularly pristine.
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Badgers make nightly visits to this 'apple-bar'. There are lots of partly eaten windfalls around, and here we see the before and after a few 'chomps'
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It seems some years since we saw Fieldmice (Wood Mice) leaping about, so here a little celebration of our little 'squeakers'. The Mouse on the right of the rock and the one above appear like this in a single frame. The other are from other frames all within 30 minutes.
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The 2 Fieldmice (Wood Mice) at the bottom along with all the fir cones come from a single image. The rest taken over and hour and a half.
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4 images of a female Southern Hawker Dragonfly in this pic, if you can only find them spread across the confusing ground flying right to left.
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This is a detail of the last image in the montage (far left).
The male of the Southern Hawker Dragonfly is our most commonly seen
large Hawker, but we don't often see the females like this one except when
depositing eggs at the edge of a pond, so a pleasing moment.
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Here our female Southern Hawker Dragonfly shows that her interest is hunting,
here holding the remains of some food item in her legs and her mandibles do their
thing.
The males of this species seem to spend far longer 'on the wing' than the
females in order to guard their territory and be on the lookout for females.
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The crazy weather has induced some of the 'Fox & Cubs' plants to flower again. The tips of the petals look as if they have been cut out with tiny Pinking Shears!
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This 'Haloed' Dandelion at the front of the house look rather striking in the sunshine.
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From the side we can see the Dandelion Flower, opening seed head and the full Dandelion 'clock'.
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In a field margin we found this female Brown Argus Butterfly feeding on one of the few still flowering Thistle plants. This pic showing both sides of the wings.
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Here we see the same female Brown Argus Butterfly with her wings fully open.
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A Pristine Small Tortoiseshell butterfly perched on the ground level leaves of one of the few remaining flowering Dandelions. This species overwinters so we may (but probably wont) see this individual next Spring.
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A well marked Green-veined white Butterfly feeding from a Dandelion flower. The edges of the wings are well worn, but insects in general have no nervous system in the wing surfaces, so don't get (or really need) any warning sensations.
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Not in this Red Kite's finest appearance, but a stunning moment circling overhead.
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After flying overhead, the Red Kite flies off.
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A Red kite circling overhead.
What a mess the moult makes of the normally pristine feathers.
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On the rotating clothes-line this little (maybe 1cm long) Shieldbug was perched on a sheet. Our first record of this (apparently) common insect.
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There has been a severe dearth of Ladybirds this year, but those we have seen are mostly the native 7-spot species photographed here, rather than more recent years predominantly 'Harlequins'.
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A Hobby flying overhead, poorly lit underneath by the sun high in the clear sky.
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Breeding may be over this year for these two male chaffinches, but they are here having a good set-to with claws interlocked. The two females (foreground) don't even appear to watching - perhaps 'boys will be boys' whatever the species!
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In the orchard there are lots of partly eaten windfall apples. Here we actually see a Badger taking a lump out of a largish apple. These pics at about 1 minute intervals top to bottom.
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A Badger at the woodland site heading in the direction of the orchard.
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20 minutes after being photographed at the woodland site, the Badger arrives at the end of the orchard to gorge on more windfall apples.
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A female Sparrowhawk perched in a large Willow tree 20m from the conservatory window, so we both had a go at some photos. This is our first Sparrowhawk sighting since January (on the meadow post 7 months ago).
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A week later this Sparrowhawk flashed by overhead.
This bird has suddenly become very active in and around our patch, with several
piles of plucked feathers in plain view, and new such heaps appearing on most days.
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On the vertical side of the meadow post (where we see most of our Owls) is this Comma Butterfly. In this pic you can see both sides of the wings, including the white Comma mark that gives the insect it's name.
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A male Migrant Hawker Dragonfly glides by with his latest afternoon snack, then veers away dropping the indigestible bits as he went.
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The corrugated iron sheet put down to attract snakes hasn't shown us one for months, But the warm white(ish) metal attracted this male Common Darter Dragonfly.
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After the heat-wave the Fieldmice (Wood Mice) are back, here between nightfall and midnight at least 2 fieldmice (wood mice) took their pics 8 times, montaged here fairly accurately.
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The Fieldmice (Wood Mice) are now regularly firing the ground level cameras overnight, and we are spoilt for choice as to what to show you. Here 3 visits before midnight, slightly re-arranged for effect.
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A montage of 4 images each of a pair of Fieldmice (Wood Mice) visiting the site for a few hours overnight.
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Not to be outdone by the Fieldmice (Wood Mice), this Vole enjoys a corn grain even though surrounded by fruit.
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After months of absence the Barn Owl made visits on 3 successive nights. This is some moments from the middle visit.
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After crossing the concrete farm road the female Roe Deer turned
down the Bridleway and continued the run. This is the longest of our
136 continuous images uninterrupted by trees and other obstructions.
The appearance of the Roe Deer here, and of the hedges is incredibly rich,
lit by the rising sun - we haven't enhanced the colours.
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The middle 3 images from the above montage of 9 to show the female Roe Deer in more detail.
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The female Roe Deer bounded down the Bridleway, the distance covered in each bound seemed to us rather grounded creatures to be ENORMOUS. The spacings are accurate.
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As the female Roe Deer moved into the distance we catch a final elegant leap
before she disappears through the hedge.
We have all of the 136 original camera frames available on request if any
particularly appeal to you.
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We first spotted this female Roe Deer speeding over the fallow field (maybe 70m away)
away from our patch and towards the Farm Road entrance.
The appearance of the Roe Deer here, and of the hedges is incredibly rich,
lit by the rising sun - we haven't enhanced the colours.
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The Roe Deer's high speed run was interspersed with leaps.
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Running over the concrete track is probably a bit rough on the Roe Deer's little hooves and a little less elegant, and just reaching to land on the softer ground off the edge of the concrete.
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After crossing the 10m side grass strip the female Roe Deer seems to leap for Joy back on the softer footing.
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After some weeks of absence this Polecat is hunting over the mound (right) and 12 minutes later (left) has found a Rodent (Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) or Vole judging by size) and is carrying it off.
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This mature male Ruddy Darter Dragonfly's wings are still mostly intact, but the trailing edges are showing signs of wear - mostly likely dragged over the thorns on a few Blackberry stems.
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This mature male Ruddy Darter Dragonfly's worn wings not as obvious here, and you get a proper view of the body.
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In the crop field margin there are many metres of Dock seed heads. This female Common Darter Dragonfly flits between them providing different views of this pristine individual.
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In the crop field margin there are many metres of Dock seed heads. This female Common Darter Dragonfly flits between them providing different views of this pristine individual.
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No visits from the Tawny Owl in the last couple of weeks, so we are specially pleased to be seeing this Barn owl. This was the first 'sighting'. A huge increase in the number of rodents recently is probably a major attraction.
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3 fieldmice (wood mice) on the stone on 2 nights, 3 days apart, re-arranged to make a little sequence. The Owl arrived 3 days later - we don't think that this is purely chance.
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The predominant Dragonfly here is, as usual, the Migrant Hawker. One evening we saw at least 4 at once hawking over the meadow. Here is one of the males flying overhead.
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This beauty is a male Southern Hawker Dragonfly stopped to warm up in the fitful sunshine.
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This male Southern Hawker Dragonfly went to perch deep in a Blackberry bush/hedge where we catch the beauty in dappled sunlight.
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A Fox arrives scaring away a Reeve's Muntjac Deer is promptly joined by another
Fox. They then proceed to mate by the waters edge for a minute or two.
Very 'Romantic' - if you are a Fox.
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We can't identify which of our foxes appears in the mating montage, and there are at least 3 individuals visiting at the moment.
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This is the Robins Pin-cushion (rose bedeguar gall) on an overhead tendril of Rose rather than on an established plant where we normally see them. Since nearly getting 'spiked' on the head by this tendril, we have spotted several more instances of Pin-cushions on high growth. We think that the insects that induce these galls must have really enjoyed the heat-wave!
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In the crop field margin we found this very tatty Small White Butterfly feeding from what we identify as a Lesser Burdock plant.
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3 early morning visits over 6 minutes by this elegant Wood Pigeon (rearranged for effect) lines up along an 'extended' perch to provide a 'Portfolio' of pics.
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A Wood Pigeon make a rather spectacular arrival.
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On the left a juvenile Wood Pigeon arrive next to (presumably) mum or dad. A really rather sweet moment.
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A juvenile Stock Dove wanders over the woodland floor learning what there might be to eat.
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This sleek Fox trots though the meadow site. This is the whole frame from the camera 'untouched' except for image size reduction.
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One of our bigger Badgers blunders through the sense beam. This is the whole frame.
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One of our young badgers checking out the fruit waste.
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This is a Red Underwing Moth flying over the ground, complete with shadow to lower right. We have no record of seeing this moth since 2011, and very few images of any of the 'Underwing' moths in flight - they are reluctant to fly in our 'flight tunnel' though we did manage a few pics in 2009 to 2011.
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This year we have seen more white butterflies (Large and Small) than we normally see over several years. This pair seemed intent on mating, didn't actually finish the job in front of us, and finally took off together to make one of their beautiful fluttering spirals into the blue and over the trees out of view.
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What we assume is the same pair of Reeves Muntjac Deer first by the edge of Round Pond, and an hour later at the end of the orchard 100m away, where the male is sniffing the female 'in hope'.
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A Common Darter Dragonfly perched aligned with a thin frond of Hop Sedge.
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The female of the Common Blue Damselfly comes in three colour variants, given various names in various ID books, but they all agree that this one is called the 'Blue' variant'
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Outside our East border several Migrant Hawker Dragonflies were hunting in the fitful sunshine, occasionally swerving from their path to catch some insect too small for us to see. This moment of flight is about half a second
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As the sunshine waned this individual landed almost in front of us giving us the chance to capture this portrait.
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A male Chaffinch, now completely devoid of any blue tinge to his beak, flies straight at a female on the ground. The truce between Chaffinches only lasts just long enough to make a family!
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Here two lone Chaffinches males, here devoid of any breeding colour, are back to squabbling over anything they can think of.
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We seem to have at least 3 rather pristine Foxes visiting the camera sites, each with different shapes at the ear tip. The heat-wave has created many cracks in the dehydrated soil, this one opened up by endless probing by birds and mammals.
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At the hedge bottom similar soil cracks present an opportunity for Foxes to forage.
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The Fox's large eyes can't move far in their sockets, but have swivelled towards the camera - perhaps in the 300mS between the click of the sensor relay closing and the camera firing.
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Fox in near total darkness creeps up on something we would never even see.
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This brimstone moth (not to be confused with the brimstone butterfly) was quite visible against the dark green of the hedge. It fluttered about in the hedge and then seemed to disappear. We just could not see it against this Yellowed leaf in the dark of the hedge, but the camera following the action shows a brilliant piece of camouflage we only discovered on-screen later.
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