Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
Our first sighting of a Jay since June this year, and only single visit last year also in June. The vivid blue patches are mostly hidden on the hidden top of the bird, but you get a hint along the top edges of the wings.
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Another sighting of a Jay this month, this time on the more distant meadow post.
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This Buzzard slowly circled overhead making the most of what little thermal updraft this bird could find.
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This Buzzard slowly circled overhead making the most of what little thermal updraft this bird could find.
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One of the local Buzzards lands on the meadow post for a few minutes. We think the bird spotted movement at the window and had this hard stare, but stayed for a couple more minutes.
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A fox on the Mound turns his head to watch a Reeve's Muntjac Deer
walk up to a couple of metres behind the Fox.
We had always assumed these creates to be 'mortal enemies' but we have
seen this kind of behaviour several times now - 2 other events in August 2019
are show as images for 24 Sep 2019
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A couple of Fieldmice (Wood Mice) fighting or loving - we fancy the latter.
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The un-withered leaves on this 'bunch of Sloe berries' suggests that the Grey Squirrel has broken this off itself.
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In the hours after midnight 2 Badgers keep a tryst.
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A Tawny Owl spends a few minutes on the meadow post, undoubtedly hoping for supper to scamper by on the recently cleared meadow area.
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Over a single night, 2 visits from what looks like the same Tawny Owl. Firstly a few minutes stay, and then a couple of hours later a touchdown but not a stay.
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The hazy sky let us photograph the sun rising behind a hedge to the South-east.
The montage is aligned to hold the hedge stationary so you can see how the sun
rises at a substantial slant at this time of year.
The sequence is over about 4 minutes. The last 2 pics were taken closer together
than the rest.
Exposure is awfully difficult to control - we took dozens of pics
at varying exposures and picked those that made some sort of sense.
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Shortly after a rain shower these glistening water drops caught the light all the way along a half-metre long twig (only part of it here).
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Each drop acts as a little lens showing an inverted and distorted view of the
world behind.
Early 'microscopes' used water drops as the lens, and later
'glass' droplets became the norm.
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A Buzzard makes a magnificent landing as big as we can show you.
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After landing on the post the Buzzard stayed for several minutes.
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The Buzzard visits again - here just about to make first contact with the post.
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The Buzzard visits again - landing complete buy yet to settle the feathers.
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The local female Kestrel has been gracing our patch.
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We have a regular male Kestrel who is at least as nervous of humans as the female. We caught this glimpse outside our South boundary.
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The female Kestrel spends a few minutes on the meadow post.
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About a week apart we notice that the landing positions of these Barn and Tawny Owls are so similar that we couldn't resist this same-scale montage for you to compare them.
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A Hornbeam seed cluster nicely dried ready for a gust of wind or clumsy bird to set the winged seeds into 'flight'.
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The solitary winged seed was lying on a concrete slab. Moved onto a wooden table to photograph we have finally concluded that this must have come from the a Hornbeam tree some 25m away.
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After a short but heavy shower, raindrops were beading the Pampas Grass stems. On closer inspection (here looking downwards) we see the drops magnifying the ridges on the grass leaves, and the drops at the edge imaging the surroundings.
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A Magpie shows off the wonderful iridescence - it seems always blue on the wings, but basically Green with a rainbow of colours on the tail.
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"Let us say Grace".
Not likely - head down before anybody else snaffles it.
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"Come on Sweetie"
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Red Sky in morning - and lo - 12mm of rain descended by next morning. The sun still below the horizon is lighting the bottom of the clouds and highlighting their structure.
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A glowing sunrise ...
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... underlights this Red Kite ...
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... as the sun 'climbs' through the trees.
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Across the field to the south this Red Kite flew low over the tilled field, on his way ...
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... to land in the top of this recently flailed really broad hedge.
The appearance of the talons strongly suggests that they are carrying a mouse or
vole size prey item up to the hedge top to eat it.
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Just editing this Wood Pigeon montage on the screen is enough to make us yawn.
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Even at the largest size we allow for web images you couldn't see the details of the sleepy bird, so we did another montage to give you a better look.
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We first saw Galls on this Conifer in Mid July.
Some hundreds of Galls now smother just the South-West
side of this miniature conifer (2m tall if you can call that miniature).
GALLS IS WRONG - we discover 2 months later that these are forming seed cases.
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2 Months on we discover that growths we thought were galls are simply a type of
conifer seed case we have never seen before. Here they are showing some
of the un-fallen seeds inside their 'pods'.
The wild world is a continuous exploration, and we sometimes get it wrong.
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Another sort of Gall on a self propagated wild Rose at the front of the house. These Robins Pin-cushion Galls are really rather attractive, and don't seem to degrade the plants too much.
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We don't remember seeing a Grey Squirrel collecting sticks before.
This stick was gone from the site in the next frame.
Their Dreys are made of twigs interwoven with soft materials, so they
must collect twigs. Its just we have never caught it on camera before.
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This pair of Grey Squirrels are undoubtedly enjoying each other's company.
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Petting over, it's time to eat!
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The Blackberry fruit season is upon us with enough to make a batch of Blackberry Jelly.
So the pips and skins get strained out and offered to the wildlife that just LOVES it.
It's no good - we think this Grey Squirrel has a grin of delight on the little face for
the sweet and sticky coating on the banana skin.
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The Blackberry fruit season is upon us with enough to make a batch of Blackberry Jelly. So the pips and skins get strained out and offered to the wildlife that just LOVES it.
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If the Grey Squirrel puts the apple down before clambering up the tree-stump maybe something else will steal it. So to check the top of the tree stump the apple goes with the Squirrel.
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The female Kestrel flew to the Meadow post.
What a fantastic bird!
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A third of a second after the previous frame the female Kestrel is already poised on the top of the post.
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Comma Butterflies seem to have been about since Spring. These will overwinter as Adults in some protected spot (like a shed!) to appear next April to lay the eggs for the new 2020 generation. This one is on a Mint flower.
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This view through the underside of the wing just shows the 'comma' of the Butterfly showing through from the 'top' side. This one is on an Ivy flower.
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Back on a Mint flowers, the underside of this Comma Butterfly emphasises the wonderful scalloped edge and the white 'comma' mark.
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Green Veined White Butterflies have been seen here regularly this year. This one is on the seemingly never ending supply of Mint flowers Now in their second brood, eggs laid now overwinter as Chrysalises.
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Green Veined White Butterflies have been seen here regularly this year. This one is on the seemingly never ending supply of Mint flowers Now in their second brood, eggs laid now overwinter as Chrysalises.
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As the rising sun in the east glows orange on the leaves, the moon nears setting in the west.
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2 mornings later we catch the moon against a darker sky. Notice how the line of shadow (the 'terminator') accentuates the craters.
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A few Migrant Hawker Dragonflies hunt over the meadow during the warmer parts of the day. Here is one in an accurate montage (so slowing down) with a larger scale portrait from what would have been on the right.
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This is a male Common Darter Dragonfly perched on a cut hedge twig
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In the mid-day sunshine a female Common Darter Dragonfly waits for lunch to fly by.
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Detail of a head and legs of this female Common Darter Dragonfly.
Note the yellow stripe down the leg - a characteristic of this species.
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This female Common Darter Dragonfly decided that this side of a cardboard box would be a good place to perch in the sun, and perhaps make an even better shadow.
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In a field margin the Prickly Sow-Thistle pops up it's head after the recent cut. Its a rather smaller flower than the familiar dandelion.
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In front of the house (in something you might call a flower bed) Mallow flowers continue to bloom.
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All around, and in our patch, the Hawthorn hedges are producing their bounty.
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For a couple of mornings we have found a fox down by the brook apparently dozing in the morning sunshine. He gave us a good hard stare, apparently classified us as 'mostly harmless', went back to dozing.
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After a weeks absence, we are pleased to again see the Tawny Owl come to check out our patch.
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2 short visits by obviously the same Tawny Owl 2 days apart.
The 1st & 3rd, and 2nd & 4th (from the left) images are uncannily almost
identical despite quite definitely being 2 days apart - notice the new damage to
the post at the top right hand edge occurring in the intervening 2 days.
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This Red Kite flew overhead spending about half a second peering upwards at something we never did see.
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We missed the take-off from the crossbar 100m left, but guessing the
destination had the camera focussed and running to catch this landing
at the next one along.
We sometimes cringe at how close these birds come to an explosive death
on the 11kV cables, once seen and described to us by a local farmer.
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Here we see a Buzzard flying by, disappearing behind a poplar that also provided the reference for this accurately spaced montage. Just over half a second of flight.
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A Rook flies by the west side of the house, photographed through an upstairs window.
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Groups of 10 or 15 Canada Geese, flying over in the early morning, has progressed to this group of about 60, seen here against the morning sky.
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A minute later the Canada Geese have formed into a long skein for their couple of minutes or so journey west.
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After a sad lack of Honey Bees in the last few weeks, a few were feasting on now flowering Ivy, this Bee is well loaded with Pollen.
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A dazzling Sunflower has almost finished offering it's pollen ready to get down to the business of making Sunflower seeds.
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This male Reeve's Muntjac Deer has arrived to investigate whatever food is left at the meadow site.
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Much more detail of the male Reeve's Muntjac Deer face, with Antlers still barely buds.
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Looking down our site's eastern path we catch this lovely male
Reeve's Muntjac Deer staring at us from about 70m away. He
sauntered off down the path on the left where we left him in peace.
With the fully grown antlers now showing as bone means we have at least two
males visiting our patch.
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