Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
Teasel flowering continues and the few bees have been making the most of the largess. This is one of two similar bees on the same Teasel Flower-head, both going round the head in circles.
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The two bees finally met on the camera side of the Teasel, we think touched antennae, and the upper Bee immediately flew away.
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This juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker takes a new approach for this feeder - chip out a piece of nut, take it to the splintered area further up the support pole, jam it in the fibres and hammer it until the pieces are a suitable size to eat.
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One or more Short-tailed Field Voles keep running the peanut stock to near zero on some nights!
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This Grey Squirrel has already found a Horse Chestnut to open and eat. When we collected the camera cards next morning we noticed this part eaten small unripe conker on top of the camera box. Seeing the pic on the left encouraged an outing to photo the part eaten Conker to include in this montage.
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Darter Dragonflies are smaller than the Hawker Dragonflies, and behave
completely differently - perching on stems and dashing out to catch some passing
prey before often flying back to their original perch.
Here we see a Common Darter Dragonfly touchdown on a stinging nettle.
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The detail is clearer, and its visually interesting, to see a negative of this event.
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Probably the same individual showing off her beautiful shining wings.
'Jewelwings' is a widely used description for Dragonflies.
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The Migrant Hawker Dragonflies are now out and about on any warm
day. This is a male hanging on some dead hedge wood.
Their common choice of dead foliage to rest on probably provides better
camouflage than perching on green leaves
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Here a female Migrant Hawker Dragonfly is mostly in shade, but a tiny shaft of sunlight is sparkling on her wings like a row of tiny lamps.
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This is a female Migrant Hawker Dragonfly hanging from a desiccated cut hedge twig. Dragonflies seem to make 'bee-line' (sorry) for these quite sparsely spaced anomalies.
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Possibly the same individual now preferring to hang from the stem of a stinging nettle.
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After midnight this Fox has their ears and eyes intensely aimed at something on the ground in front of them.
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2 nights later this young Fox takes his portrait some 25m from the pond at the high resolution woodland photo site.
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In previous years Foxes show some special interest in something high in the trees at the East hedge gap. Can it be coincidence that this behaviour resumes in the same week after 'the return of the Pheasant' who night-time roost in these trees.
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Don't muddle this with the Fox looking 5 days before - this is about 100m away Just after midnight this elegant (and judging by size of lack of mange) young Fox enters at the South hedge gap and suddenly (a few seconds) turns to investigate something in the tree/overgrown hedge to his left. We can only guess what caught their attention - possible some bird roost or nest.
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One of the Badgers get photographed at the woodland high resolution camera site half an hour before midnight.
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An hour after dark this Badger stomps in through the South hedge gap, stops for a moment before setting off east.
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We continue to be mystified as to what so many creatures find it worth searching this patch of leaf-litter covered soil. Here a sodden badger spends a couple of minutes nosing over the surface.
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Now that some farm fields provide a feast of food, we see rather less of the various mammals,
but we see most of them once or twice a week.
Here a female Reeves' Muntjac Deer is foraging her way along the edge of the Round Pond.
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This pair of Reeves' Muntjac Deer quietly forage together around the Round Pond for a few minutes. The male is the one with the little Antlers (leftmost, bottommost, rightmost).
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If seems that the male Reeves' Muntjac Deer has shed the velvet from his antlers
without us catching a view of the tatty mess made during removal.
Then again this may be a different male or different pair.
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A Noon passage of this elegant deer quietly walking through the orchard.
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Blackbird profile has soared in the last couple of weeks as this pair are collecting food for their latest brood. Here the female has captured a Cranefly (Daddy-long-legs).
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This juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker touches down on the meadow post and in
half a second is already on their way again. Some (animal) visitors really
don't like the photo flash (some 15m away) while others completely ignore it.
We may see this individual again when they realise the flash is completely harmless.
We notice that Owls never react like this - perhaps sweeping
car headlight beams are so much a part of their nightly patrols that it is just
flashes of light are 'nothing unusual'.
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Farm fields to our east and south were waterlogged for months, and the late sowing has provided a lovely tapestry of blue, yellow and white.
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The field to our west is a crop of less attractive but probably more productive wheat of some sort. The Badgers have certainly noticed this bonanza. A badger Latrine near the west edge of our access track shows that the Badger that produced this has been eating almost nothing else!
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This Fox passes the Round pond setting off for a night's hunt.
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Fox in the early hours, apparently oblivious to the dull red IR lamp of the trail-cam.
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One of the several Foxes walks up the Round Mound.
These 3 pics are at what the camera says are at 3 second intervals.
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This pristine fox arrives at the hedge bottom, using his ears and nose to look for anything of interest. The roots of the whiskers emerge from an almost geometric pattern of lines.
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A pristine Peacock Butterfly perched on a spread of Oxford Ragwort flowers.
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A somewhat worn Painted Lady Butterfly feeding on a mint flower outside the back of the house.
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This Ringlet Butterfly on the ground looked in need of rescue.
About 5 seconds after this pic the little delight flew off!
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In the morning sunshine this Large White Butterfly isn't yet warm enough to take flight. On the right with wings closed it is surprisingly noticeable with just the white Antennae tips. A few seconds later the partially open wings makes a quite startling appearance.
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This year the Beautiful Demoiselle Damselflies have not appeared in the same numbers as the last few years, but have stayed around longer. Their wings are still as pristine as new.
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A male Banded Demoiselle Damselfly perched on a fallen grass seed head.
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A beautiful delicate flower
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A rather elegant portrait of a Wood Pigeon on the Tree-stump.
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We take this as The Fawn having a playful (to us anyway, perhaps not to an adolescent male deer) jump onto Mum. Dad was following along the pair but they had moved out of frame by the time he arrived.
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A good look at the male Reeves' Muntjac Deer growing his new Antlers convinces us that the shafts are thinner than they were. We guess that they are 'allowed' to shrivel and drain of blood before the 'velvet' is discarded.
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Firing the camera to get an ID still of this Buzzard sitting on the 11kV crossbar ended up getting this sequence of the bird diving downwards.
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An hour before midnight this Fox triggers the trail-cam, and stops to snarl at the
dim red light from the camera IR 'flash'. The lower pic shows the Fox mouth is
showing some of his fearsome teeth.
A little clarification about IR (Infra Red) in photography.
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In the hours across midnight as July rolls into August, this badger enters at the south across the new dry ditch, and 70 minutes later is on their way to depart through the east hedge. No other sighting 'on the way', but there are far more routes without a camera than there are with one.
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This male Blackbird is first seen briefly on the Meadow post, and a minute later (given clock settings drift) dives down a few metres to the Meadow site to grab some unfortunate meal for his chicks - unfortunate for the meal, not the chicks.
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Probably the same male Blackbird spends 3 minutes panting in the hot sun at the top of the Meadow Post.
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Its hot in the noonday sun, and this male Blackbird has spread out his wings and pants at the same time to control his body temperature while he gets his vitamin D.
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Its Hot - what's a elegant female Blackbird to do but pant?
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Time to feed the kids. Again, and again ...
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Some insects are really rather spectacular.
This is a Spotted Longhorn Beetle on some white flower.
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A red Beetle with no common name basking on the edge of a large Bindweed flower.
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Some of the Migrant Hawker Dragonflies frequent the sun-warmed concrete
access track, and often perch at a convenient human eye height.
This is a female Migrant Hawker Dragonfly.
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And this is a male Migrant Hawker Dragonfly.
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This Migrant Hawker Dragonfly seems to like flying on the north side of the house. The camera exposure rate 'sounded' regular and we assume that the irregular spacings are due to wind eddies and insect wingbeat patterns.
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This Fox is most likely scent-marking a lump of dead leaves.
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One of the juvenile Foxes takes their portrait.
The eye looks a bit cloudy, but we hope that this is just a photo effect.
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One of the Fox cubs visits the Woodland site.
However much we stare at this pic. change the contrast, make it negative, etc.
the leg count just doesn't compute. The 'middle' leg looks like its been 'pasted in',
but this is just the camera original slightly sharpened and exposure corrected as
we normally do. Even the clear shadow doesn't provide any clues.
If we spot a definite 3-legged cub we will let you know!
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A Comma Butterfly shows us his orange top of wing, and the dark bottom of wing with the white 'comma' that gives the species it's common name.
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A Small White Butterfly on a partially developed Teasel flower.
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A few days later, with a more suitable camera, we have a better look at the eyes, antennae and the probing proboscis.
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A Peacock Butterfly perched on a frond of Hop Sedge - the plant that dominates the Duck Pond.
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This young Fox walks at speed past the Duck Pond. It looks like the individual with the two-tone tail.
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A different fox stops for a moment as the Trail-cam at the Round pond and takes their pic. For images in the dark and poor light the camera uses a mostly IR (infra-Red) light that is on for between a quarter and 1 second. The IR looks to the human eye as a dull red glow, and it seems that the Fox can also see it as it gets this meaningful stare.
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This Buzzard seems to have been making a tour of the area for a ground hunt. Here far too far away to hope to see any action, is a morning visit to a distant 11kV power pole .
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The evening of the same day sees what may be the same Buzzard spending a quarter of an hour at the Round Mound hunting at the ex-Badger, now Rabbit, hole. The bird made 3 visits and obviously caught more than one item, but the resolution of this trail cam is insufficient to see what.
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The idea of a single country-wide 'Ant Alate Day' seems to be nonsense, but we do find ant nests synchronise their Alate dispersal at different nests near the end of a warmish day. Outside the Study Window we see these flying ants from the conservatory, and always dash such out with a camera to catch the few minutes of activity. Alates seem to climb up any piece of vegetation, and then launch from the highest point. Here are two views of an Alate climbing a grass stem.
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On reaching the top this Alate circles the top for a moment before launching.
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We already know where another Ant nest may be dispersing, and 3 minutes later find at least 100 Alates on the previously sun-warmed edge of the concrete track.
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These three Alates seemed about to launch from this grass seed cluster, but never did. The worker ant helps provide an idea of the Alate larger size.
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Just one image captured of this female Sparrowhawk landing on the Kitchen bird
table.
We have regular sightings of this bird flashing past the conservatory window
in the hope of catching some bird (or maybe even a vole) unprotected on
the caged bird feeder.
Caged feeders do not 'protect' birds inside from Sparrowhawks - they
reach between the bars with their talons to pull out their latest catch.
But they DO work to stop Squirrels emptying them in a day!
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We saw this moth (ID uncertain from this perspective) apparently land in
mid-air near a stinging nettle leaf.
We knew that it must have landed on a silk thread, and were concerned
that it might be 'stuck' to it with no spider about to eat it.
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In this tighter crop you can see the incredibly fine threads and the unusual
and rather attractive eye of the moth.
Having got the pic we decided to release the Moth from the abandoned
threads, but the Moth flew off without any help as a hand approached.
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This male Reeves' Muntjac Deer really looking the business.
His antlers are still 'in velvet' but just about fully grown - he wont look
so good when the Antler 'velvet' starts breaking up and falling off!
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Here the Reeves' Muntjac Deer Fawn and Mum enter through the south hedge gap half an hour before midnight, and over 8 minutes travel the 30 metres to emerge at the front of the house.
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Outside the study we see this nervous juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker.
As soon as they spotted us they left.
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An hour later (to the minute!) this adult Great Spotted Woodpecker arrives to grab a few bits of peanut. This is a montage of two moments.
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Over 16 minutes this juvenile Green Woodpecker made at least 3 visits to the meadow
post.
First under an overcast sky ...
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.. and then in a patch of sunshine.
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