Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
This female Kestrel flew up to the 11kV cables to make a delicate landing facing into the wind ...
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... but after just a second or two she noticed our presence and quietly launched back into flight.
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A couple of hours later presumably the same bird was perched on the top
rung of the disused telephone pole (bottom).
For some reason, she took off but immediately landed back on the top of the pole.
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The temporarily flooded ditch is now firm enough to allow the Reeve's Muntjac Deer to walk across.
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The now fairly dry ditch is now no longer an obstacle for the badger who trundles quietly through the night.
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The Polecat is also happy to cross the ditch, but at such a speed that the one frame each second or two is too slow to catch more than one image.
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Each year a pair of Magpies make a nest in a tree near to the south edge of our patch. Here a Magpie tries to pick up an awkwardly shaped twig to add to one of the nests 'under construction'.
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The picture on the left (taken 5 Jan 2020) show a Rabbit stricken with
Myxomatosis.
A month later we see the same rabbit (confirmed by ear damage detail) apparently
recovered save for the few scars showing in the facial fur.
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The Red Kite circling the patch provided some good opportunities for photos.
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The Red Kite circling the patch provided some good opportunities for photos.
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The Red Kite circling the patch provided some good opportunities for photos.
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And away the Red Kite flies to the south.
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Stepping out of the house revealed this Red Kite hanging close by in the sky, facing into the wind and sun. The bird proceeded to make 3 slow circles over about 3 minutes. The enforced slow progress provided a rare opportunity here for lots of Red Kite Photos.
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A chance for the view of the top of the Red Kite's wings properly lit.
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Sun in you eye, or not, changes the size of your, or this Red Kite's, Iris.
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The local female Kestrel arrives at the meadow post with a Vole in her talons, then rips it to bits and eats it over about 8 minutes.
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After her meal she did a short circle round the post and landed again for reasons we can only guess.
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A Wood Pigeon aerobrakes for touchdown.
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A Rook makes an accurate landing on the Meadow post.
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A Barn Owl lands on the Meadow Post and stays for a few minutes.
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The new year 2020 was ushered in by this image of an Otter running along
a soggy ditch along our south hedge just before 4 a.m on 1 Jan 2020.
This is the first sighting we have of an Otter on our site, taken by a
temporarily installed Trail-cam to see what was using an obvious ingress
through the hedge.
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A search of our archive found that 4 years ago the then farmer across the road
had sent us pics of an Otter he found dead near the roadside.
So they have been in the area for a few years, but not visiting our previous photo sites.
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The Day Shift: The male Sparrowhawk (with his 'mad yellow eye') - photographs himself as he fails in yet another pass over the bird table and peanut feeder.
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The Night Shift: A Snowy Ghost in the night, this (ringless) Barn Owl takes just this one pic of themselves in the whole week.
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On stepping out of the back door, this female Kestrel goes whizzing across the meadow and out of sight. Accurate spacing at about 7fps.
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Just 6 minutes later, walking around the outside of our patch, we find her (presumably the same individual) perched in a conifer at our South East corner. Eventually our walk along the paths (about 20m away) got just that bit too close for her comfort, and she flew North ...
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... to land in a Cherry Tree at out North East corner where she let us walk by about 30m away without a fuss.
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A pristine Badger stops by at the Woodland site.It was raining, but this site is sheltered by a large conifer tree that helps keep it dry.
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This ditch has recently been flooded enough to encourage Badgers to find a better place to cross, but now that the water has subsided the Badgers can walk across again.
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All over the site we find these Badger scrapes where they have been looking for worms and other invertebrates.
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The comfy way to eat peanuts from this feeder - wrap yourself
around it and scrape away at the nuts.
For a couple of years we have been unable to use these feeders because
all 'wildlife' peanut supplies have been so small that the Squirrels would empty
the feeders in a day, simply pulling the nuts out through the holes.
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Grey Squirrels are amazingly limber, assisted by their '5th limb' - their tail. Here the back of the squirrel is resting on the top of the right hand post, and the tail is bent over the side of the post to stop them sliding off.
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When we have put out this type of large un-caged Peanut feeder Grey Squirrels often work their way around the bottom, scraping out fragments of peanut. This series over a couple of minutes.
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Seed in beak (and probably several more in the crop), the Blue Tit launches to find a safe place to digest his 'winnings'.
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This male Blackbird lands elegantly on the stone.
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This Grey Squirrel stands upright on the stone for a better view of the overcast surroundings.
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Outside the Kitchen window this small (presumably juvenile) Grey Squirrel watches the world nervously from the ground.
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A Grey squirrel having a good 'shake out' defeats both the high-speed camera flash and the 1/200 Sec camera shutter to produce this unusual rendition.
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This female Kestrel was preening on an 11kV cable near the blocked gate. After a few minutes she flew off and we continued walking along the farm paths and Road.
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250m along we see a Kestrel also on 11kV cable, this time clearly scanning the ground for a meal. More distant, and difficult to make out in the overcast conditions, we assumed that it was the same bird, but we now see that this is the male! After a couple of minutes the bird plunges to the ground, stays for several seconds, mostly hidden in the crop, before flying away through a thin bit of hedge.
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This apparently solitary fox fits nicely into the camera frame for this portrait.
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Less than an hour later these 2 foxes spend a minute or two quartering the orchard 'grass'. Probably just looking out for a snack, but perhaps with 'romance' on their minds.
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This Fox walking along the edge of Round Pond appears to have a young Rabbit in their mouth.
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This image is the first close up and clear image we have of a predator in the act of a kill. The fact that the camera was triggered despite the male Sparrowhawk being well above the sense beam suggests that the Blue Tit saw the threat coming and took off, but the Sparrowhawk was too quick.
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"That was good - lets try for another"
15 minutes later the male Sparrowhawk makes another pass you see
here, and yet another 5 hours later, and then no more for days.
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This Tawny Owl has to be pouncing on some unfortunate rodent, but we can't see whether or what it catches. 30 minutes before, what was almost certainly the same bird was watching this site from the top of the meadow post.
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A pristine little Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) investigates a still closed fir-cone in the dark of the night. Watch out for Owls!
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This female Kestrel spends a few minutes grooming on the meadow post half an hour before sunrise.
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Next day this female Kestrel is on the lowest 'step' (perhaps 3.5m high) of disused telephone pole. She was quite tolerant as we walked down the path 20m away, but eventually she flew off back into our patch.
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Here the photographer caught the moment of this female Kestrel crouching down about to spring into the air.
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Here is a little more of the sequence - unfortunately only 'two-and-a-half' birds!
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Badgers are stolid animals with short but powerful legs that undoubtedly can't jump very far. So rather than get a soaking crossing the ditch this Badger turns back to look for a better crossing place (there are plenty).
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The following day we see the different approach taken by the much
more lithe Reeve's Muntjac Deer - just jump over the water!
Admission - these two taken 10 hours apart at each end of the same
night, but we don't think a misrepresentation.
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An almost posed Grey squirrel, paws resting on the log as she looks over.
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Here this female Kestrel arrives on the meadow post with some sort of rodent in her Talons, and proceeds to break it up to eat in pieces.
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This is a detailed version of the image following the 3 above, complete with the gruesome remains of the partially consumed Rodent.
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After eating the rodent the female Kestrel left momentarily and then returned for a few minutes. She is digesting her lunch, occasionally pecking at a talon with her beak - cleaning the utensils? Bottom left is a rather quirky angle to catch.
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Raisins and other dried fruit crammed into the beak before somebody else comes and grabs it!
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A Blue Tit and female Blackbird share the recently arrived offerings.
They had better get on with it - the Squirrels and Corvids will soon arrive!
NOT a montage.
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An opportunity to compare four of our small bird species in a single montage.
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This female Sparrowhawk takes an atypically sharp photo of herself flying over the kitchen window perch and bird table.
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We spotted this female Sparrowhawk on the stump of the Willow tree on the other side of the main pond, staying for a few minutes. On one occasion (top right and bottom left) she gets knocked off balance by an unexpected gust of wind.
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What looks like the 'local' Tawny Owl pays a midnight visit which includes the departure. It was pouring with rain ...
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... as you see here in a frame between the two leftmost images above
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Heavy rain on this night does not seem to discourage this Tawny Owl, who spends over 20 minutes getting visibly wetter as the bird stands in the rain.
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"OK - the worm is out of the ground.
How do I swallow it when it wraps itself around my beak?"
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Long-tailed Tits are nervous birds we get to see only intermittently. Here are 4 inside, and one on the top of a peanut feeder that is Squirrel-resistant so long as we remember to fit the clip and cable-tie to hold on the top!
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It's Tea Time!
NOT a montage, though reduced width.
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The Barn Owl visits occasionally, but at the moment we see the landing but the bird moves on within a minute.
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The Barn Owl visits occasionally, but at the moment we see the landing but the bird moves on within a minute.
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The Barn Owl visits occasionally, but at the moment we see the
landing but the bird moves on within a minute.
Same text 3 times? Well it is Groundhog Day!
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The female Reeve's Muntjac Deer and photographer eye each other before she trots down the path to the right and, as usual, vanishes.
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This Polecat speeds through the Meadow camera's field of view for this portrait.
Parts of the face are so white that they are 'burned out' in the original.
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A temporary camera placed near the SW corner of our patch catches this lovely fox just about to tackle the perhaps 20cm deep water in the ditch.
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