Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
This badger on the Round Mound is momentarily IR lit from 2 trail cams at once creating a much better image than the usual single light source directly from near the lens.
A sturdy Badger stops for a moment near the south hedge gap
A couple of 'edge of camera frame' portraits of Reeves' Muntjac Deer. First the still immaculate older Fawn.
Much less immaculate, but very characterful, is our regular male, with his Antlers growing back apace.
One of the Reeves' Muntjac Deer Fawns walks quietly through the Meadow site.
This Fox spent about 5 minutes wandering around this patch of ground near the east hedge gap before leaving.
This adult Fox stops momentarily near the south hedge gap for a last look back. Their slight open mouth shows a couple of the long 'killer' teeth.
While walking round the North West corner of the house, we find this startling Moth. It is perched on the remains of the rendering under a bay window. This is a Scarlet Tiger Moth that we have never seen before anywhere but ID books. It is a daytime flying moth so we have never caught one in our night-time moth trap.
Our first Large Skipper Butterfly this year.
One of are recent arrival male Banded Demoiselle Damselflies perched
on the tips of some leaves, providing a view of the banding through
all four wings at once.
The first sighting this year was on 22 June 2024
A delicate female Beautiful Demoiselle Damselfly poised for a moment on a leaf.
This and the Banded form of Demoiselle seem to live a a few weeks, but they
never seem to pick up the wing damage that their larger Dragonfly relatives
seem to quickly acquire.
Various things are growing on the now massive spoil heaps along our south boundary. The most hilarious is a pretty decent crop of Oil-seed rape. But this solitary Poppy caught our attention as potential little gem. These 3 pics each 3 days apart illustrate the super-fast life cycle of what is called the Common Red Poppy.
2 days later the poppy has grown a second stem and flower, turned it to seed in just another 2 days.
Jam-making (it must be admitted, from last years frozen Cherries) always creates a slurry of pips and skins to dispose of. This Grey squirrel is having a lovely time, face and paws thoroughly gunged up with the sticky fruit pulp. Yummy!
A Rook landing on the Meadow Post. The eye is clouded over by the precautionary closing of the nictitating membrane. Half a second later the already stable bird opens his eye for a clearer check around.
A Reeves' Muntjac Deer family - this Fawn is much smaller than the Fawn we have
been watching, so Mum at least is not the original Mum.
Dad's antlers look suspiciously like the part grown pair of our normal male
so perhaps he is 'two-timing' her.
Breeding and Antler growing
don't follow any calendar pattern in this species.
An affectionate moment between Mum and Fawn Reeves Muntjac Deer as the day draws to a close. This may be a good place to start the nights forage - the pond at the right is still comfortably full for a drink.
Mum and Fawn Deer in a quiet moment just after dark.
The incidental grass stems and seeds seem to add to the intimacy of the moment.
An adult female Green Woodpecker on the Meadow Post.
We are aware of juveniles around the site from calls and fleeting glimpses,
but this year Parents and youngsters are extremely human intolerant.
We usually see Green Woodpecker on this pole top from inside our patch. Here, across the tonnes of soil heaps the bird seems unusually tolerant of our presence - enough time to aim the camera before the bird departed
Camera resolution extract of the middle moment.
A gorgeous Green Woodpecker lands on the Meadow Post.
The air temperature and sunshine cause him to pant - the main
way that most birds cool themselves.
The Blackbirds are obviously rearing a brood.
This male has collected a quite disgusting looking beakful of
invertebrates to stuff into the ever open craws.
This blackbird has something in his beak as he walks along this log lying on the Round Mound. We have to assume that another worm is on their way into a chicks maw.
The north edge of the meadow - where the land turns to woodland, produces a great show of Oxeye daisies every year, always all leaning towards the sunny-side south
On a different scale Fox and Cubs make splashes of colour just a few centimetres across around the south and west of the house..
Stinging Nettles can be a real nuisance, but several butterfly species need them to breed. When these nettles flowers the appearance can be rather interesting.
A view of Hedge Parsley - the lower head in full flower, and the upper head turned to seed.
The Odonata family (damselflies and Dragonflies) seem rather reluctant to
appear this year. But one 10 minute session on a warm afternoon produced
these 3 encounters.
A male Azure Damselfly.
A female Beautiful Demoiselle Damselfly.
This Broad Bodied Chaser Dragonfly is perched on the tip of a flowering Nettle making what we think is a rather interesting contrast.
The Reeves' Muntjac Deer Fawn seems to have lost his stripes.
We now know that this is a male - the antler Pedicles are beginning to form.
In the early hours this disparately sized pair of Badgers amble over the grass towards the south hedge gap.
A pair of Badgers forage over the grass near the south hedge gap. They look to be similar size and fairly young so probably siblings.
A bit of a classic pose from this Grey Squirrel nibbling something in their paws.
A Rook uses their enormous beak to carefully pick up a single grain of corn.
The Study peanut feeder here sports a pair of Short-tailed Field Voles.
One or two volves inside this feeder is becoming a remarkably regular event
so long as the gap between the cage and the wooden post is no more than a few centimetres.
NOT a montage.
Within 5 minutes we see the Green Woodpecker on the Meadow Post top and then getting their beak caked in mud probing the ground at the Meadow site.
A couple of hours later we see the female Green Woodpecker making a short visit to the Meadow Post.
Next morning the mile of new railings installed by the Farm provides a perch for this Green Woodpecker.
Sparrowhawks rarely perch on the Meadow post, but this female spends 6 minutes resting and preening on the Meadow Post. Before the last pic clouds rolled over the sun producing a dramatic change to the impression.
An afternoon Fox out on the Prowl by the Duck Pond.
Tawny Owl preference in Rodents is undoubtedly for Voles, but here we see that an incautious Fieldmouse (Wood Mouse) will do just fine. This is at half-past midnight
3 hours later what looks like the same Owl makes another of his three landings on the meadow post in the same night
Here we catch this slightly awkward position.
Just visible at this size are speckles of rain over the bird's head.
An interesting stand-off. In previous years we would expect the Pigeon to launch upwards out of reach of the Squirrel's claws. But this year we have seen several instances of these confrontations going nowhere. In this case the Pigeon simply walked quietly to the right.
Not sure what is going on here!
The lower pic here was taken about half a second after the top one.
We would love to know 'what happens next'.
What happens next - we don't know.
FOOD!
Youngsters go on hopefully begging well past there ability to
collect fod for themselves.
FOOD!
Mum or Dad really doesn't look the least bit impressed.
The Reeves Muntjac Deer Fawn is getting steadily more independent ...
... but still has an interest in Mum's milk-bar ...
... seen here as a Fawns eye view of Mum's most interesting bit.
Suddenly Fieldmice (Wood Mice) are appearing at both the hedge bottom and the Woodland site. Here at the hedge bottom there are at least 2 individuals - the pair at right are genuinely fighting or loving photographed over 3 days.
At the Woodland site this action was limited to just 3 hours.
A male Beautiful Demoiselle Damselfly flicking his wings. Some do this and some don't - we haven't worked out any pattern. Demoiselles are, at their own scale, voracious hunters.
At a different scale the Sparrowhawk is also a voracious hunter, here making an early morning stop-off at the Kitchen perch.
Loud bird alarm calls rang out from the east end of the main pond. Dashing to the pond caught this thoroughly 'guilty' Fox obviously disturbed from his attack by the arrival of the greatest predator (man). We stared at each other for a few seconds ...
... before the fox turned away left at speed - see the departing Fox near the top of the montage.
6 minutes later outside the South hedge a Fox was loping across the harrowed field. Over 200m away it's difficult to be sure, but the black mouth suggests that the Fox is carrying his latest catch back to the cubs.
In most years we see a family group of Long-tailed Tit flitting high in the trees, and whether being obviously watched or not, soon move on. For a couple of minutes we were treated to initially 4 juveniles only a few metres away. This is the first 'grab-the-moment' shot.
Two of the juvenile Long-tailed Tits moved out of sight to an adjacent tree, but these two stayed long enough to get this little portrait of one of them.
This is a Little Owl (actual species name and it fits). They made 3 visits in the first few days of the week - usually back to camera!
The Tawny Owl makes a single appearance at the Meadow post an hour after midnight.
A portrait of a female Reeves Muntjac Deer ...
... and a few hours later the male - antlers seeming to bulge more at each sighting.
A little 'family group' of the Reeves' Muntjac Deer, Fawn on the right.
This male Green Woodpecker spends a very active 7 minutes on the top of the Meadow Post.
The Foxglove at the conservatory door is now taller (about 2m) than we are.
Testing a lens created this closeup image of a single flower
showing a mass of light coloured 'hairs' in apparently random
scatter over the inner surface.
A web search suggests that these are to stop small insects getting inside -
they get tangled in the hairs and leave.
Having shown you several details of the only Foxglove on the plot (that we know of) reaching about 2m high in this protected corner.
In the weeds along the farm fence to the west across the main road we find a lovely little patch of Meadow Cranes-bill.
Many leaves have quite different top and bottoms. This caught leaf flipped over holds the water crops far better than the normally oriented leaves. Water drops make interesting if imperfect 'lenses' as shown in the x3 insert.
Who's building a nest then?
A most unusual moment to capture is this simultaneous arrival at the Meadow Post
of two Wood Pigeons. Normally one or both birds would veer away to avoid a collision
and come around for another go,
so we expect this is a 'pair' who trust the other bird not to create a
problem.
Rather sweet - bird style.
A lucky-to-catch launch.
The (at least) two immature Broad-bodied Chaser Dragonflies spotted a few days ago have now matured and we have both males and females. This is a female.
This male Broad-bodied Chaser Dragonfly is about the same size as the female (wingspan about 70mm)
but his abdominal segments are coated with this beautiful blue
pruinescence.
We know from experience from handling these insects that the blue power is rather
easy to rub off, and in fact the males gradually get a bit tatty as they brush the blue
powder on vegetation. The pruinescence reflects Ultra-violet (UV) light very well for some reason.
So far all the Broad-bodied Chaser Dragonflies have been spotted well away from water - perfectly normal. Here this female spends several minutes hunting from this broken off stem sticking out of the Duck Pond's water. Read this bottom then top just an eighth of a second apart.
Another landing montaged into a single image, in reality taking about half a second.
We believe that the Dragonfly was hunting the cloud of midges low over the water.