Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
We have heard the Green Woodpecker on several occasions recently without actually seeing one. Meadow Post camera to the rescue.
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Earlier we showed a little montage of a juvenile Green Woodpecker. Here we see what may be Dad.
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This male Blackbird has a beakful of we-know-not-what. Whatever, it looks like a substantial meal for whichever chick gets it.
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We puzzled over what these black shiny berries in the female Blackbird's beak might be, but shortly afterwards noticed that a few Blackberries have already produced some ripe fruit that fits the bill (pun unintended) perfectly.
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There are hundreds of these tiny white snails around the plot. Apparently they make good eating - for Blackbirds anyway.
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Our Fawn is really growing up well, developing the facial mask and the hidden scent glands clearly visible.
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The male Reeves' Muntjac Deer stops for a brief groom.
The fur around his antlers is deteriorating prior to being shed.
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As the next day starts the Reeves' Muntjac Deer youngster (its really hard to go on calling this creature a 'Fawn') stops by at the Woodland site.
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Looks like a great year for Blackberries may be imminent. Is this a pic of the Blackberry flowers or of the Bee & Comma Butterfly feeding-on/fertilising them? Plenty of sugar in the larder ready for the Jam-making glut!
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In early evening light this Peacock Butterfly catches the remaining warmth and casts an interesting shadow on the concrete surface of the garage.
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This seems to be a quite a common 'Orchid' - here already having set some seed. Nature programs seem to concentrate on large petalled specialist blooms (in our view often rather ugly) rather than the multitude of less spectacular plants.
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The Gatekeeper Butterfly is said to take its name from its habit of fluttering around the gateposts of Edwardian & Victorian houses. The quick diagnostic from other brown butterflies is that the black circle contains TWO proper white dots.
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Another Gatekeeper Butterfly showing the top of the wings.
The rear wings differ from the underside, but the Forewings are quite similar.
This Butterfly looks mostly orange in flight, while the Meadow Brown has dark
upper wings and looks quite dark in flight.
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A day-flying Moth with the appropriate common name 'The Snout'
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'Our' Fawn is doing well.
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For this young Deer it's easier to jump the ditch than clamber down & up the steep edges.
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Unusually this male Reeves' Muntjac Deer has hung around our site while growing new Antlers, so we have been able to watch and show you the growth. The Antlers 'in velvet' are now about as long as they ever get, and the 'velvet' seems to be turning grey as the skin is starved for blood prior to peeling off.
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An afternoon pic of the whole Reeves' Muntjac Deer 'family'. These Deer don't 'Rut' or even have a 'breeding season. But we don't expect such a group to stay together for months as we have seen in this group.
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Ah! Cool water for a hot day. Eyes shut in bliss?
Before we sunk it into the ground we get to enjoy the delight of some of our
visitors revelling in this new feature. There are several other bathing dishes,
but this is the only one with an automatic camera.
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3 hours later this Magpie is putting some Vigour into this bathing business!
So that's how the bowl suddenly gets emptied.
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A Close-up from the above. We enjoy the way birds generate 'sheets' of water, and possibly jets created by the gaps in the wing feathers.
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Who would look their best while getting out of the bath?
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This Robin has caught a Plume Moth as breakfast for the youngsters.
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This Robin flies from the top bar of the souther railings, complete with a light green caterpillar in their beak.
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Both adult and Juvenile Robins rate this as a good bathing bowl.
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The little water dish at the Meadow site is currently completely visible to the Meadow site camera,
and would completely spoil many pics.
The fine spray of water droplets is all the Robins own work.
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We put out a tiny dish of water behind the log at the Meadow site, but the water
disappeared so fast we upgraded to a 'Bowl' in a clear plastic container and a few stones
to provide variable height perching points. This has proven highly popular.
Robins in particular (top line) plus Magpies and Rabbits have put in appearances in
a day-and-a-half. Squirrel and Deer have also visited.
A little technical aside - 4 of these pics show the bowl and water at an angle.
Its the camera - not the water of course - that is out of level.
Fixed in the paint package for fuller versions, and the camera is now level -
according to the spirit level!
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This Juvenile Robin, probably standing on a stone in the bowl, is demanding FOOD from the harassed parent standing on the near edge of the plastic Bowl.
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The Bowl seems to be a good place for a bath - well this young Robin thinks so.
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WOW! This male Sparrowhawk takes a wonderful selfie.
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Genuine lucky pic of a couple of juvenile Blue Tits in flight, a Wren dropping down from the bird table and a Blue Tit standing on the peanut feeder.
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This male Blackbird has more food for the youngsters.
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This adult male Green Woodpecker made visits to the Meadow Post about half an hour apart.
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Another chance moment - 2 Great Tits (left and right) and a Blue Tit.
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Ooh - what's that!
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4 Hours later (5 a.m.) it's getting light.
I'd better make the most of my final hunt.
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Just before midnight we see this Badger rolling about on the grass. Probably a quirk of this single Badger.
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As the sky begins to lighten two trail-cams catch our Reeves' Muntjac Deer 'family' (Mum, Dad and ever growing Fawn) visiting two ponds about 40 metres apart in a loose group.
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Look forward - Listen Backwards!
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The young Reeves' Muntjac Deer Fawn browsing some of the clover and maybe Buttercups. We have noticed before that these Deer eat a very varied diet, and usually only some of what they like at any one visit.
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This year we are not 'mowing' any grass - just 'strimming' back where it is too long to walk on. The effect on the clover & Buttercups at the Meadow Photo site has been very noticeable.
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Around 4.30 a.m. this Robin is already collecting caterpillars for the hungry youngsters.
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A Tawny Owl visits the Meadow Post for about 3 minutes.
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This Tawny Owl visit started with a sighting on the Meadow Post. About half an hour later a visit to the Kitchen Perch lasted about 3 minutes - unfortunately back to camera throughout the second visit.
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At last this male Southern Hawker Dragonfly stops where we can see him land.
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This male Beautiful Demoiselle Damselfly stayed long enough perched on this leaf to get a photo.
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Here is the female Beautiful Demoiselle Damselfly - only the females have the white 'dot' on the top tips of all 4 wings.
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We don't remember a year like it for Butterflies.
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We frequently enjoy watching pairs of many species of butterflies spiralling around
each other in a courtship dance. But getting a photo is another matter.
Here is about half a second of a pair of Comma Butterflies here accurately positioned.
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Elevenses - Peacock Butterfly style.
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Another Scarlet Tiger Moth leaves from a ground level leaf.
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A Pair of Green-veined White butterflies mating
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How to make more Pigeons - stage one.
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This has been a wonderful week for enjoying butterflies.
Something will appear every few steps along the orchard paths.
The dominant species are the Comma and Meadow Brown Butterfly,
but others make appearances.
Here a Comma Butterfly with the white 'Comma' on the underwing clearly visible.
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A Meadow Brown Butterfly.
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An oblique view of a Peacock Butterfly feeding blackberry.
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Small Tortoiseshell Butterflies used to be the dominant species.
Here on a sheet of corrugated iron we also see 2 broken snail shells.
It seems that a local Thrush sometimes likes the iron as his 'Anvil'.
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A 1 minute visit by this Magpie to the Meadow post together with departure in the general direction of the Meadow camera site - but didn't get photographed there.
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Do you remember the Green Carpet Moth a week or two ago that was still
largely green. After a week or two they bleach to the brown.
We are not implying that this is the same individual as before.
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Some delicately coloured flowers with the unappealing name Field Scabious.
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The strident colours of a patch of 'Day Lilies' planted 30 year ago to brighten up the view from the kitchen before the trees 'took off', have self-sustained and still appear each year.
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This Scarlet Tiger Moth is a day-flying Moth with attractive light patches pattern when perched. The 'scarlet' of the common name refers to the rear wings which create a startling flickering red when in flight.
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The startling red rear wings show best in flight - indeed the flying insects is more a blur of red than anything else.
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Viewed from beneath you see the rear wings even with covering by the forewings.
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Another moment of a Scarlet Tiger Moth in flight.
That sudden appearance of Red must be quite a shock for a predator.
Many Moths use the same tactic - generally called 'colour Underwing moths'.
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Is something in that stare about to become supper?
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The Fox arrives at the south Hedge gap, has a good look about, and decides to go West (our right in this pic) to start the 3 a.m. hunt.
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4 nights later the Reeves' Muntjac Deer Fawn shows a remarkably similar approach on arrival.
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The movement of the rear right leg is somewhere movement blurred, but then you have to put some vigour into a good scratch!
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Covering about 50 metres in about 3 minutes, this badger arrives at the East hedge gap and makes their way to the Woodland camera site.
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Bunny with Buttercups!
Most of the Buttercups have closed for the impending night - its about 9.45 p.m. and near the
solstice and with the clocks shifted by an hour, at our latitude it is still twilight.
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Meanwhile the Fawn browses on Clover and Buttercups to supplement the grass.
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You can see that the meadow camera site is now a glorious carpet of white Clover and Buttercups. The Dunnock will be hoping for something more nutritious.
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A Young Robin, at bang on 5 a.m., beats the buttercups to opening.
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The Wren outside the living room window repeatedly uses this long-dead twig to broadcast his song.
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What looks like a parent Pied Wagtail with two of their youngsters. The 11kV cables aren't the most attractive perch, but the birds obviously like it.
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A Pied Wagtail and another (juvenile or one of the other variants) look over the fields from the Farm railings.
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A patch of Rose of Sharon glows in the sunshine.
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This seems to be an opium Poppy like we saw growing in the same area last year.
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A few 'out of season' fungi appeared on the roadside west border of the main road. We probably would not have included any mention except for the beautiful single bite in the side of one of the fruiting bodies - highlighted in the insert bottom right. Real experts will probably be able to say which rodent did the deed!
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This is a female Roe Deer spending perhaps a couple of hours wandering around our patch.
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We spotted this Chinese Water Deer browsing the field to our south before they spotted us. But when they DID spot us they started speeding along the field margin. This is an accurate montage at 8 frames per second, skipping alternate frames, so this is about 2 seconds of action
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The initial leap viewed using the skipped frames from the above montage.
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Grey Squirrels seem to attack 'anything' that can't eat them!
We see a lots of such 'Get out of my patch' attacks, but don't remember
seeing a Grey Squirrel with mouth actually embedded in this
Wood Pigeons feathers.
Next day we didn't notice any debris or feathers so assume the squirrel
let go when the Pigeon started lifting them both into the air!
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Just before midnight this Badger stops for a look at the top of the trees near the east hedge gap. Foxes sometimes do this as well. We can only guess at why.
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A Fox walking through the Hedge gap in the small hours.
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This male Banded Demoiselle Damselfly is perched with all 4 wings almost perfectly aligned.
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Differentiating Demoiselle females is a bit tricky, but this one seems to be
a female Beautiful Demoiselle Damselfly. The white speck near the top of the
wings is a pseudo-pterostigma - normally black in most Damselfly and
Dragonfly species, but absent in male Demoiselles.
It is apparently some sort of anti-vibration device - there was a fascinating 5 minute discussion
of Dragonfly flight in Springwatch 2025 Episode 2 (of 12). You may be able to see
it at https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m002cty6/springwatch-2025-episode-2
. Move the player bar to 45 minutes to catch the start. It includes (for us)
new information not to be found in any of our specialist books.
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First Skipper (a small variety of Butterfly) of the year.
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Our 2 acre patch came to us as cattle pasture. At that time we identified 7 different grass species growing (undoubtedly from a commercial mix) but we haven't kept track of the grass species. Here in a sunny patch we identify 'Yorkshire Fog' still being about. Buttercups provide some scale as well as being a pretty adjunct.
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The Reeves' Muntjac Deer Fawn forages at the meadow site surrounded by Buttercups.
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