Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
A Small Tortoiseshell Butterfly coils up his proboscis until it completely disappears.
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The first sighting of a Small Heath Butterfly this year - choosing a piece of wind-blown rubbish to perch on :-(
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On an Oxeye daisy flower are 3 Thick-legged Flower Beetles. Only the 2 males here have the leg bulges.
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A pretty pair of Dog Rose flowers, already bleached white by the sunshine.
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We seem to have Black-tailed Skimmer Dragonflies this year, here perched on the warm Corrugated Iron sheet intended to attract snakes underneath.
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A Few Beautiful Demoiselle Damselflies are still to be found in the middle of warm days. Here a male ...
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... and here a female with wings misaligned so you can see 3 of the 4 pseudo-pterostigma. 'Pseudo' because they are white rather than the usual dark - in this species (and the Banded Demoiselle) only the females have any mark at this position.
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Each year a Mullein plant pops up from a crack in a concrete block blocking
the unused end of our access track.
This year the block-bound plant has been 'invaded' by Mullein Moth Caterpillars
who have stripped the plant of leaves and left it to wither.
Will we see the plant again next year? Most probably!
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In the early morning (5.30 a.m.) this Wagtail diligently gathers insects to feed the chicks.
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Out before the world gets too busy, this Pied Wagtail is tearing about collecting food from the grass margin. Hundreds of frames not shown never got to see the bird actually picking up some interesting item.
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Lots of rain in the last few days, and we often see Grey Squirrels using their tails as 'umbrellas' - even though the rain seems to have stopped.
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This female Grey squirrel is enjoying a major grooming session in a sun-warmed cleft. In other shots nipples are clearly visible - her tummy is swollen enough that she is probably pregnant. Yet more of the little blighters!
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Banana skin is a favourite for some of the squirrels.
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10 minutes apart we assume the same Grey Squirrel practises looking innocent and twee.
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The human infrastructure in rural areas is full of posts and overhead
power and phone cables. The animals don't care how the perches get there,
they just use them like any tree branch.
Lots of birds stop over on this very old concrete power pole.
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This Chiffchaff is utterly dwarfed by the 11kV power cable high overhead.
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Mum Great Spotted Woodpecker breaks and collects a peanut fragment and flies off to cram it into the ever-open beak of her youngster waiting in the trees behind.
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A day after the mother Great Spotted Woodpecker was photographed collecting bits
of Peanuts at the Kitchen Window feeder, we catch this moment of what we assume is the
same adult taking a just extracted piece of peanut and giving it to the juvenile below.
We never get the extraction phase at the site - Mum is always hidden by the tube of nuts!
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At he hedge bottom site you can cram your beak with peanuts ...
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... and something like a minute later, stops off on the way home before braving the nest-full of screaming youngsters!
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An earlyish morning (7 a.m.) walk finds this Hare on alert almost 100 metres away.. We started walking towards the Hare who inexplicably moved across a concrete track towards us, and then gradually folded back the wonderful ears before crouching down in the short grass probably hoping to be rendered invisible. This sequence is a construct to show the change in position of the hare, including major relocations and approximate changes of scale from both the Hare and the humans moving. But this 3 minutes of change is a genuine reflection of what happened in a strange sort of slow-motion.
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Eventually the Hare seemed to realise that his hiding posture was doing no good at all, so ran off into the crop out of frame to the left. One and a quarter seconds of the run shown here.
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Away from the Road, Hares hang around a little longer. This one is crouched at the edge of the crop watching us.
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From behind a hedge on one side of the main road this Yellowhammer could only see our heads and didn't take fright as he sang to the world. Unfortunately traffic noise completely obliterated his song for us. - a known problem for birds nesting near roads and in towns.
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Our industrious moorhen here gives a good view of the multi-purpose legs and feet in various positions.
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Two badgers at the hedge bottom site - we think a youngster and Mum or Dad off the right side.
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2 hours later this Badger has a look at the offerings. More than likely not either of the 2 we saw together.
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Sitting by the Round Pond seems to be a favourite bit of behaviour for this fox
who seems to be gazing upwards at an overhanging branch of a large cherry tree.
Perhaps a Pheasant is almost irresistibly perched in the elevated sanctuary.
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After weeks of absence to female Sparrowhawk comes in to land on the Kitchen Window perch as the evening darkens.
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Three days later in mid-afternoon the female Sparrowhawk makes another visit.
Photographically inferior but lovely to see.
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The Beautiful Demoiselle Damselflies are to be found in well separated
spots of shelter and sun. There are far fewer than last year when at least
50 spent midday on a south facing stretch of hedge.
We notice that these delicate creatures (in fact Damselflies in general) seem
to remain pristine - presumably they do not frequent bramble patch where
the prickles tend to damage wing edges.
Here is a male ...
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and here a female.
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A female Beautiful Demoiselle Damselfly managing to perch on 3 leaves simultaneously - and still look elegant.
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So far the ONLY direct evidence we have that there are Moorhen chicks about - the black blob on the right is definitely a Moorhen chick.
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Another adult Moorhen taking food in the opposite direction - so there must be another brood hatched even if we don't know where it is.
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Our busy Moorhen here carrying food across the Woodland site for the chicks hidden in a nest somewhere. Left to right the bird seems to be carrying Unknown, a large fly and a small damselfly we can't ID.
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Mum Great Spotted Woodpecker flies off, 4 minutes later returning with a beakful for her youngster.
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More detail of Mum about to stuff the food into juniors open gape.
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The Juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker flies in to land next to Mum.
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These crazy shapes pieces of twig are the result of last years hedge cutting. Farmers generally use a flail cutter which smashes the wood to small pieces, but our manually handled electric pole cutters leave the pieces whole.
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FEED ME.
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This pristine Hare is probably a youngster inexperienced in the dangers of being near Humans. Over a few minutes this one wandered up the Farm Road towards us until perhaps 10 metres away. The Hare turned sideways and stopped, assessing the 2 stationary creatures (us) standing on the grass.
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Deciding that it was time to depart with a soupcon of haste, the Hare did an
about-turn and accelerated off.
The first image pics are about 375mS apart and still quite close
This image shows gaps of about 250mS apart and more spread out anyway
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We recognise this male Reeves Muntjac Deer from the length and curve
of his Antlers and facial markings, so are confident that each of these pics
is of the same individual losing first one and then the other Antler over 2 days.
Top Left: BUA_20220527_0210_044_SC8 27 May 2022 02:10 Both Antlers present
Top Right: BU9_20220528_1029_047_SC2 28 May 2022 10:29 Left Antler absent
Bottom Left: BU8_20220528_1203_161 28 May 2022 12:03 Right antler rubbed with rear hoof
Bottom Right D72_20220529_1735_006 29 May 2022 17:35 Both Antlers gone
We guess that in the bottom left pic the remaining antler was becoming loose and
was irritating the Deer.
We remember years ago in a wildlife film seeing a large antler falling from a
much larger deer, and the surprise the animal showed at the suddenly unbalanced head.
We doubt that the small Antlers of Muntjac Deer have a serious unbalancing effect.
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Harlequin Ladybirds are very variable - even the two bottom left obviously know that the different markings don't matter!
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A female Scorpion Fly - so no 'scorpion' tail.
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Clouds are interesting at this time of year, and the human pattern-creating brain
can't resist seeing things in the patterns.
Here we imagine a cable (probably a contrail) through the sky with Swallows fluttering around it.
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On a grander scale we imagine a snow-topped mountain surrounded by a ring of cloud at a lower altitude, like you really see around volcanos.
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And then there are the abstract moment in the sky.
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A Tawny Owl stops on the tree stump in the woodland.
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Here a dozen Spindle Ermine Caterpillars seem to arrived at the 'End of their tether' - quite literally.
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The Saga of the Spindle Ermine Moth seems to be nearing it's end. Under a leaf we find this 100 or so in a clump.
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A metre away we find dozens more clinging to this vertical thread.
This has been an exceptional year for these moths. The adults are
said to be about from June to September, so we hope they provide
good feeding for the new crop of birds building up their bodies ready for Winter.
And the moths are rather pretty as well!
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The mass showing this year of Spindle Ermine Moth caterpillar has effected every one of our Spindle Trees - we haven't counted, but we planted 25 about thirty years ago and most of them 'took'. Damage varies from perhaps 30% loss of foliage to about 10 of the trees stripped completely bare of leaves.
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A couple of Magpie landings.
The bird on the left seems to have some sort of food pellet in the beak.
If one of our neighbours tells us what it is we will insert the info here.
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Its looks like its nest building time again for this Magpie.
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The colour of some mature Damselflies is quite remarkable. If they were not so small they would be lauded as amazing.
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This rather pretty Micro-Moth has no common name. The out-of-proportion antennae are many times the length of the insects body.
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The species of this Hover-fly is uncertain.
References images with similar markings all have much more dominant black.
Pleased to meet you even if we don't know what you are!
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Cinnabar Moths seem to be unusually plentiful this year.
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How you usually (don't) see Cinnabar moths - hiding behind and under leaves.
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A 'Blood-vein Moth hiding in foliage.
The 'Blood vein' is just coloured scales - nothing nasty.
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We didn't hear her ourselves, but here a female Reeves' Muntjac Deer greets the day. She may be calling a fawn - see next image.
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The morning provides awful lighting for this first Reeves' Muntjac Fawn this year, quietly following Mum towards the rising sun.
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Continuing the story of the Ermine Moth caterpillars: a walk down a 20 metre long path found our way blocked by about 20 silk threads hanging from a Spindle Tree about 4 metres above. Clinging to the thread were hundreds of caterpillars we have to believe to be Spindle Ermine Moths. Much harder to photograph than to see, here is an attempt to catch the hanging wall of threads.
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Looking up we see the same nets of silk we saw in the hedge, but this time several metres up in the Spindle tree.
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2 days later only a few of the threads used by the Spindle Ermine Moth Caterpillars remain. Here a camera flash makes them clearer.
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This is the clump of Spindle Ermine Moth caterpillars in the middle of the above image, but photographed with flash from the other side.
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Isn't it wonderful how birds can manipulate their feathers?
The tail is spread into almost a complete semi-circle.
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We rarely get pictures of birds leaving the Meadow post (a technical matter) so were surprised to get these two usable moments 3 hours apart.
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We rarely get pictures of birds leaving the Meadow post (a technical matter) so were surprised to get these two usable moments 3 hours apart.
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At 75 minutes after sunset it is almost completely dark. This Tawny Owl arrives
on the meadow post carrying some sort of Black Bird in his right Talons.
It's unlikely to be Rook or Jackdaw, and there is not enough white to be a Magpie,
too small for a Moorhen, so our best guess is a male Blackbird.
The image to the right is 1 minute later.
Another minute later both had departed.
The Owl may have landed on the kitchen perch or Tree stump to eat it, but as
Murphy's law would have it, this was the night that the RCD tripped on the North
side camera cabling in thunderstorm, so we will never know.
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