Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
The Fox cubs are now seen mostly singly and they don't seem to be troubled by the flash and noise of the high resolution cameras. We are unable to identify the 'horror' that this Cub is carrying.
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All of the visits to the Fox hole by Foxes have been very short (typically less than a minute) as they check out their old home.
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The Foxes seem to have stopped occupation in the Mound, and the hole seems to becoming safe to access again.
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Our last sighting of the regular male Muntjac Deer had lost just one Antler. Here he is now Antler free with the stubs flat-topped ready to grow a new set.
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Next day we see him contemplating the camera as he chews the cud.
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Wild Rose flowers are arriving all over the sunny bits of the site. We normally see these (white) Burnet Roses a week or two before the (pink) Dog Roses, but this year were barely a day or two apart. The smell of the Burnet Rose is sweet and incredibly strong - down wind you notice them 20 metres away - far more intense than the Dog Rose, though a similar fragrance.
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A Dog-Rose flower - the classic 'Spring wild Rose'.
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One of our regular moorhen takes a quite exquisite selfie.
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At the smaller end of the bird spectrum, Blackbirds are still nest building. These two pics an hour apart.
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Lurking in a dark patch near Duck Pond this bracket fungus (we have had a go at an ID - see the image Ref) almost shines in the gloom. About 15cm across.
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Here in a sunny patch these hemispheric fungi fruiting bodies look most incongruous. We can't find them in our huge fungus ID book, and only find this reference on an Italian site which may be accurate or not.
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A Sparkling Dandelion clock.
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The day of the King Charles III Coronation produced more daily rain than any
single day so far this year. We do feel sorry for the thousands getting soaked
for a glimpse of some people going by in a nice dry coach!
The next day we had a fair proportion of pea-sized hail mixed in. These two
downpours gave a lot of the blossoming flowers a thorough beating.
Dandelion clocks had shed most of their parachuting seed.
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Intact Dandelion heads are difficult to see into, but here this partly stripped head shows how the seeds grow from the white base attached by a tiny weak speck that breaks when the parachute catches a gust.
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We don't see much of snails here, and after the rains were surprised to come across this large snail lying on its side to eat a closed Dandelion flower.
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About 70 metres from 'Home' in the Round Mound we catch this Cub, apparently unaccompanied, investigating the hedge bottom site. The cub may be 'tasting' the banana peel, and or the various slugs, but the next frame (without Cub) includes all of the food and slugs we see here, albeit the slugs rushing over the stone at about 10cm per minute (0.004 m.p.h :-) )
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Here all (we are now fairly sure) 4 cubs out to 'play' as darkness descends.
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A fourth Cub is cropped out near the top of the frame.
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At the Eastern hedge gap over a few seconds, we see one Fox Cub with something
dark in his mouth. The arriving Cub seems to want a piece of the action, but the
original cub makes a prompt exit.
The black 'prey' is about Blackbird sized, but may be just a wet piece of wood.
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A 3 frame visit of this Fox Cub at the Woodland site half and hour before midnight, and a single visit at about 4 a.m. (same or different Cub - we can't tell). No signs of an adult at this site which is some 30m from the Fox Earth.
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A detail from the top left of the above montage.
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A Hare spends a couple of minutes wandering around near the East Hedge gap. We have seen at least one Hare being carried back to the Fox earth to feed the four hungry cubs, and it is a relief to see that there are enough Hares to tolerate the predation.
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Over a couple of days and night the camera on the east of the mound caught
several visits by 1 to 3 Fox Cubs.
Timestamps & frame count were lost by a camera fault, so it's just 'on or around 03 May 2023'.
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Long-tailed Tits appear in small groups, spend a minute of two feeding on bushes, visible through windows, before departing. A couple of the regulars delightfully hover in front of the bushes - a behaviour not yet satisfactorily captured on camera.
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At the other end of the size scale, we get another visit by a Heron to the Duck Pond - this time only this one frame contains the whole bird.
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A Bee-fly in flight.
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A bee-fly hovered over the corrugated Iron sheet for several seconds before landing. That's 27 frames at 7 fps skipped to get this pair 4 seconds apart.
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This male Roe Deer is a new individual - the Antlers more developed than the previous male, and once free of 'velvet' they do not continue to grow.
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The female Reeves' Muntjac Deer approached the camera as 'her' male dutifully follows. Here he clearly has both of his Antlers ...
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... but 2 days later we catch this image of probably the same male Reeves' Muntjac Deer having shed his left antler.
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Several of these male Holly Blue butterflies come out on warn early afternoons. Here we catch one flying to a Green Alkanet flower (which are blue!) where he landed on the less obvious flower to the left of the full-face, turning over to feed.
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2 minutes later this male Holly Blue butterfly shows us a better view of the top of his wings.
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A male Orange-tip Butterfly perched on a three-leafed 'hand' of Blackberry Leaves.
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This Tawny Owl spent a couple of minutes on the Meadow post, only to arrive 90 minutes later at the perch by the kitchen window. Facial features strongly suggest that it the same bird. There are many good hunting perches around our patch, so Owls may spend many hours moving around out of site of cameras.
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An hour after midnight this adult Fox arrives with what must be a Corvid (Rook
or Jackdaw). The Fox carries it up the mound, probably over the top, and a
minute later reappears going the other way.
"Where are those cubs this is for?"
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About a minute apart this group of 3 Fox cubs wandered up the mound near to the Fox hole. The cubs range all over the mound through the night, now occasionally joining a parent in a more distant outing.
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The adult Foxes face growing pressure to find food for their ever growing and more hungry cubs. This one entering through the South hedge looks to already be in hunting mode in the middle of the afternoon.
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Last seen in 2020 (and then after a 5 year gap) we again see a female Large Red Damselfly. Here on some desiccated foliage ...
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... and she then moved onto a fresh Blackberry leaf.
She is a hunter - all the foliage does is provide a lookout perch.
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A Fox cub confirming that the Fox hole really IS a Fox hole. Taken while the
camera light thinks its light enough not to turn on, but dark enough that the
camera is still working in 'dark' (monochrome) mode.
So much for electronic intelligence.
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Still out as the day begins we catch this Fox cub in all natural, if shade-muted, colours.
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A Fox cub out early in the evening as the nights get shorter.
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A couple of nights later sees Mum or Dad Fox homeward bound with breakfast in the mouth. Just 4 minutes later we see one of the cubs most likely carrying the same prey item into the Fox hole.
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What has become a regular Spring visitor - this Green Shieldbug, here using the conservatory's security gate instead of a branch.
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Another Green Shieldbug in a more friendly setting.
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In a photo of Lilac in flower we find these two Sloe Bugs mating amid the blossom.
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Crab-Apple blossom is a delightful mix of white to deep red.
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One of our anonymous fruit tree blossoms.
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One inherited tree in the orchard is this Red Crab-apple tree.
Everything is red - the wood, sap, leaf tinge, flowers, apple skin and
flesh.
After a few years of almost no yield this year the tree is smothered in
blossom.
Red apple crumble, Red apple sauce ... slightly sharp but tasty compared
to most supermarket varieties.
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Details of one of the Red crab apple flower-heads.
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This male Reeves' Muntjac deer spent 5 minutes foraging at the end of the orchard. To left his is pushing his way into a Bramble (Blackberry) bush to reach some attractive morsel.
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Here the female Deer gets surprised by the humans, and a speedy exit demonstrates her athletic abilities.
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The Goldfinch has his red face splattered with pollen.
That's what the plant wants!
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A male Chaffinch having his way with 'his' female on the tree-stump!
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Garlic Mustard has just started flowering, and here at least it is the favourite food of Orange tip butterflies. Here we catch a male (only males have the orange tips) with wings both open and closed, showing the entirely different appearances
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Seen transiently 2 days before, at last we get a photo of a male Holly Blue Butterfly. The 'top' of the wing of the male is this light blue - the females look similar on the multi-dotted underwing, but has a much darker top wing. We haven't photographed a female yet this year
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Hares have become regular visitors at the south hedge gap.
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Just before dawn 2 days later we see this adult Fox carrying a quite large prey item rather laboriously across the grass by the Duck Pond. Other images suggest that this is most likely a Hare. Regular visits by prey animals get noticed by their hunters.
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A week later on the back (North side) of the mound we find this sad front end of a hare, body mostly eaten but head and ears still very recognisable bottom left of the ribs.
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By the next morning the dead Hare was gone, and on downloading images from the
trail cam at the Fox Hole we see a cub carrying the now light carcass into the Fox hole.
Running a wildlife sanctuary frees the inhabitants from some of the Human pressures,
but the carnivores do tend to eat their neighbours :-(
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Our first Garlic Mustard flowers - favourite of the Orange-tip butterfly
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Please don't mow away Dandelions in your lawn. They are becoming an important food resource for Bees now that there is so little flowering meadow, and are really rather pretty viewed with the right perspective.
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Another 3 days on we again see what seems to be the same male Roe Deer.
His back shows several patches of missing fur in similar pattern (though viewed
from the other side) to the individual seen previously.
At Bottom left we see him giving the Trail cam the eye!
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4 hours later he walks past the Round Pond in the general direction of ...
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... a narrow bit of path between the south hedge and the Duck pond has been eroded to bare mud by thousands of our and creatures winter footsteps. Roe Deer obviously pass this way as well - multiple overlapping hoof-prints would be all we know of them if not for the trail-cams.
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Through the conservatory window we see this Grey Squirrel spending several
minutes ripping this fir cone apart for the seeds.
The insert taken at the site 30 minutes later shows the debris.
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A male Green Woodpecker on the grass at the Meadow photo site.
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A male Green Woodpecker visits again this time at the Meadow Post ...
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... and half-an-hour later is seen flying over the Duck Pond
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A Goldfinch broadcasting his song to all and sundry.
The bird moved a little (you can see the feet in different positions)
but the montage is spread so that it makes sense.
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A Bee-fly enjoying a Lady's Smock (Cuckoo Flower) flower.
The insect is hovering as well as touching the flower with their legs.
It was quite windy and probable hard to maintain position without a little 'help'.
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A Bee-fly enjoying a Lady's Smock (Cuckoo Flower) flower.
The insect is hovering as well as touching the flower with their legs.
It was quite windy and probable hard to maintain position without a little 'help'.
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An Orange-tip butterfly feeding on Lady's Smock (Cuckoo Flower) flowers. Only the male has the orange tip to the white top of the wing. Both sexes share the intricate green and white pattern on the underside of all 4 wings. An absolute delight!
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An apparently pristine Speckled Wood Butterfly (1st appearance in 2023).
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