Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
A Rook displaying the wonderful glossy plumage.
A Penny plain,
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The lighter coloured male Pheasant standing proud.
And Tuppence (Twopence) coloured.
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For several days the planets Venus and Jupiter (less bright owing to its orbital position on the other side of the sun) have made an attractive show to the south before dawn. Unexpectedly (to us anyway - this sort of astronomical 'clockwork' is well predictable) a view out of the upstairs hall landing showed this juxtaposition of a crescent moon with the planets either side.
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By the time of the murky dawn the moon and planets Venus (left) and Jupiter (right) are all higher in the sky, but still easily visible. While the dimmer planet is perfectly clear in the camera original, for any image size that makes sense here, it is not. So a little enhancement brings back the original impression.
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This Hare made a lazy gambol across the winter wheat crop before stopping for a nibble.
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A Blue Tit on a cherry tree branch.
It looks to us that it has already started forming a brood patch.
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A post installed a couple of decades ago as a lonely feature among a 'sea' of plastic tree shelters is now almost lost in the maturing trees at 3 times it's height. But this Buzzard seems to like it.
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As darkness falls this local Buzzard lands on the Meadow Post ...
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... and the Buzzard then spends a whole 25 minutes surveying the scene.
Rearranged for effect.
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This is Starlings arrayed along all three phases on the 11kV cables a few hundred metres to our south. We estimate 600 birds close packed along the wires.
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Through the living room window this female Great Spotted Woodpecker was hammering away at a branch on this dead Elm tree, presumably to locate grubs in the wood.
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When we first saw this sequence of Green Woodpecker visits over 2 hours we assumed that it was the same individual. But the 1st and 4th (Top Left and Bottom Right) images are of a female (no red under the eye) and the middle 2 are a male. We do hope they have 'found' each other!
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Dragged from the grain bag left in the front 'Garden', this Grey squirrel seem to have actually chosen a piece of Banana Skin over other fruit. They scrape off the inner surface to leave just the thin outer skin.
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Returning to the bait bag after a 15 minute walk, we find this Grey squirrel
busying nibbling some piece of fruit waste out of the bag. The little b....r was
perfectly aware of us arriving, but decided that the desert spoon in the bag,
covered in sticky peanut butter, was worth pulling out for a final lick. It carried
it a bit away from us, then to our surprise ran off with the spoon and disappeared
under a gigantic prostrate juniper. The spoon is nowhere to be
found!
An archaeological find for some future owner who will never guess how it got 'there'.
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A Thrilling couple of minutes as this Red Kite circled around our heads in some unaccustomed clear blue sky.
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A Thrilling couple of minutes as this Red Kite circled around our heads in some unaccustomed clear blue sky.
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A Thrilling couple of minutes as this Red Kite circled around our heads in some unaccustomed clear blue sky.
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A Thrilling couple of minutes as this Red Kite circled around our heads in some unaccustomed clear blue sky. Watch the tail twisting through 90 degrees as the bird turns through the sky, so far that we start to see the 'top'
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This year-old nest was the first built for Spring 2018 and seems to have been (re-)appropriated by this pair of Rooks.
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The log is positioned just behind (from camera's point of view) the sense beam so we pick up arrivals and departures of the Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) family
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This badger photographs itself at the woodland camera, and 15 minutes later continues to forage at the edge of Round pond some 15m away.
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This Grey Heron flies by us while making it's way to hunt in a Winter Wheat crop some 300m away.
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This Grey Heron flies by us while making it's way to hunt in a Winter Wheat crop some 300m away.
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This Grey Heron flies by us while making it's way to hunt in a Winter Wheat crop some 300m away.
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This Grey Heron flies by us while making it's way to hunt in a Winter Wheat crop some 300m away.
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This Tawny Owl, probably just launched from the right side of the kitchen bird table-perch at half an hour to midnight having arrived earlier without triggering the camera.
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An assortment of Fieldmice (Wood Mice) ('Owl snacks'?) over a couple of nights
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2 days (+ 16 minutes!) apart 'our' male Pheasant comes and goes across this site.
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At the hedge bottom site we see a different male Pheasant with much lighter plumage and different markings.
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2 of what we now know are at least 5 female Pheasants on the site picking over the hedge bottom at sunrise. The two male Pheasants will presumably have a confrontation to decide who fathers this years chicks.
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With Testosterone running high, the male Pheasant is willing to step over the log to see off this Grey Squirrel. One of his 'Girls' waits in the background while he clears the feeding site for her to use.
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A Grey Squirrel threatens a much bigger male Pheasant. The Pheasant is mostly out of frame with beak tip and neck ring at the top right and a claw just below centre of the right. We have no idea how this confrontation worked out.
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A patch of loose soil (where the collapsing straw bales spent some years
rotting) is a regular hunting patch for this female Blackbird.
Here she kept still long enough here for a little portrait.
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These two consecutive images show the female Blackbird probing the soil and obviously finding things to eat (but never letting us see anything). Her eye in the lower image has lost most of it shine as she covers it with her nictitating membrane, a sort of transparent extra eyelid.
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Probably a male Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) in the air, showing off to his prospective female. Another mouse a little further away (middle right) seems oblivious to the whole affair.
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In a currently rare spell of sunshine, one of two Red Kites on the wing at the same time makes an elegant glide past us.
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Our patch seems to be developing it's own Rookery - here is one of the incumbents.
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Birds don't have 'expressions', but this female Blackbird looks pretty pleased to have found a sultana.
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The male Great Spotted Woodpecker is often seen on one of the peanut feeders. But here we catch him in a more natural setting, pecking out grubs from a dead Elm tree deep inside our patch.
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The male Great Spotted Woodpecker works his way up and down the trunk, quite often out of sight on the other side of the trunk. On the right you see a piece of bark he has pecked off flying away seen against the birds breast.
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From the other side of the tree we see the peck marks left by the feeding Great Spotted Woodpecker.
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The Pheasant males are already 'warming up' for Spring. We hear this one calling on our site and others in the distance. We can hardly believe their plumage!
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At the hedge bottom we see these male and female Pheasants, admittedly almost a day apart. The female is a recent arrival.
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The full width for this camera setup just manages to catch both ends of this lovely bird.
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The female Sparrowhawk made some visits after sunset one evening and before sunrise the next day. This bird uses the subdued evening light for cover when pursuing prey.
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Sparrowhawks are quite active when looking for prey from the post top.
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After 6 weeks absence it seems that the local Tawny Owl has decided to visit a few times. The bird spent several minutes outside the kitchen window.
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More detail of the Tawny Owl
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The first decent sighting of a Kestrel, here a female, for months. She flew past in the distance ...
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... turned (into the wind of course - she is also know as a 'Wind Hover') and Hovered ...
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... dived down onto the crop, didn't seem to catch her prey, ...
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... and rose up for another hunt. All in 2 minutes.
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One of the delights of the winter is flocks of Lapwing (also known mainly outside the UK as a Peewit or Green Plover) sweeping about in the sky changing from dark birds to flickering white as they sweep back and forth, the change often sweeping through the flock in a wave as here. These 4 images taken within a few seconds.
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For many weeks only a single female Pheasant has been on our site, but suddenly there are three accompanying the male. Here is 'his Lordship' along with his Harem of 3 females. The female plumage and head markings always seem to vary sufficiently to tell the birds apart.
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'His Lordship' may not have it all his own way - this is a different male pheasant recently arrived who may be planning to try his luck with the 'girls'.
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A Red Kite (one of 2 in the area at the time) made a few passes past us before vanishing into the distance. During winter there are rarely any 'Thermals', so flying has to be performed using hard work rather than gliding on up-currents.
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This montage of the Red Kite is as accurately spaced as we can manage from aligning hazy cloud outlines out of this crop.
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A Red Kite (one of 2 in the area at the time) made a few passes past us before vanishing into the distance. During winter there are rarely any 'Thermals', so flying has to be performed using hard work rather than gliding on up-currents.
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An older Red Fox hopes that the smell of food, which may include the smell of Fieldmice (Wood Mice), will turn out well. This foxes Greyish rump as first suggested mange, but a closer look doesn't show missing fur.
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