Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
For once a Wren stayed still long enough to focus the camera. Here on a cut hedge twig the Wren sings his little heart out.
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A Blackbird broadcasting his song.
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We are pretty hopeless at ID's of LBBs (Little Brown Birds).
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Enjoy this Red Kite gliding effortlessly in the thermals.
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Turning in the air this Red Kite approaches the camera.
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What does a Red Kite need to look up for. Well those pesky Rooks are still making aerial attacks.
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Fox and Cubs is among one of several of our 'favourite flowers'. They just glow like tiny suns.
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Oxeye Daisies are rampant this year, forming carpets in unshaded parts of the meadow.
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<Something we never expected to see - Hares 'Boxing'. At the time of year this pair of pugilists might have been as much playing/practising as actual fighting, but it was a delight to see this even perhaps 300m away.
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6 successive frames starting at the image above - less than 1 second of action
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A more general view of (now 5) Hares rushing about to no obvious purpose. They didn't seem aware of us behind the farm railings and wandered slowly over the brow of the field.
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A Pristine Red Admiral Butterfly feasting on the just started to flower Privet hedge.
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This is the first Tortoiseshell Butterfly we have seen in 3 years, here poised on one of thousands of Oxeye Daisy flowers
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This male Common Blue Damselfly basks in the morning sun. These Damselflies are the typical size for Damselflies at about 30mm long.
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Another sighting of male Banded Demoiselle Damselfly. These Damselflies are 'large' compared to most others at about 45mm long. When in flight their broad wings makes the insect very distinctive.
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A male Blackbird lands on the meadow post and stays for a thorough preen.
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A couple of hours later a female Blackbird stops by, her beak overloaded with some sort of worms to take to the nest.
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The male Green Woodpecker visits the Meadow post.
Green Woodpeckers are a bit bigger than Great Spotted Woodpeckers.
Representing size in photos and videos is a major problem
without artificially including items for comparison. Even if you DO
include something known (like a coin) they are meaningless in
foreign countries or even the same country years later.
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A sight we have seen in several years - a Green Woodpecker on the side of one of the huge poles that support the 11kV power cables. They are creosoted (or some modern equivalent) and we can't think why they are interested in this wood.
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This Juvenile Great Spotted Woodpecker seems to be doing 'Pecking Practice'
and has chosen the kitchen bird table and perch as targets.
On the right of the top image there is a little damage to the perch between
the bird and the chain.
The middle image shows the bird beak occupied with a piece of wood.
The bottom image shows that the relatively weak edge of the 'table' is the next target.
Well, he is a Woodpecker!
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The female Great spotted Woodpecker spends a moment on the Meadow post (right). 5 minutes later the juvenile arrives but makes a prompt exit.
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Lots of this lately and good to see - Mum or Dad Great Spotted Woodpecker cramming food into the juveniles ever-open beak.
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Mum arrives at the Kitchen perch (right) with beak full of peanuts fragments and proceeds to stuff into the Juveniles craw.
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Out on the hunt - every night - but only sometimes caught on camera
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This Fox quietly walks past the large hole in the east of Round Mound.
Unusually for a nighttime image, the eye exhibits the vertical slit of a Fox's eye -
normally the iris is wide open in the darkness.
Hunters typically have vertical slits for the Iris, while Prey animals gain an
advantage of the wider field of view by having horizontal slits.
See these domesticated Goats at
https://www.moorhen.me.uk/imgofday/arch 2018 jul.htm#28
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This Fox passes through the hedge bottom site with a blackbird hanging by a wing from the Fox's mouth. The open beak of the bird one quarter up the centre of the frame may indicate that the poor thing is still alive - but not for long.
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In north west corner of the field adjacent to our north hedge, each year we enjoy a few square metres filled with these pink Convolvulus.
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Just a week without mowing lets the buttercups run riot. Personally we would let them enjoy their moment, but we have no say in how the Farm business manage their land.
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A Great Spotted Woodpecker youngster spent many hours being fed peanuts fragments by his Dad.
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Dad Great Spotted Woodpecker feeding the juvenile - here viewed on different occasions at different positions on the pole.
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Dad and Youngster on either side of the pole. Dad (left) already has a fragment of nut in his beak. The youngster (right) looks plumper than the adult - a characteristic of some species.
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Another piece of peanut getting the 'smash-it-up' treatment from the male Great Spotted Woodpecker.
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Dog Rose has been spectacular this Spring - here a couple of fresh openings before the sun takes away their colour.
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This head of 4 white petalled flowers is variously identified as Dogwood and
Rough-leaf Dogwood. It looks quite different to the mass of Red stems you
see in winter on cultivars.
We have not previously appreciated the corrugation of the leaves.
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An unexpected sighting of a single Red-legged partridge at the Meadow Site. These three pics are at about 1 minute intervals in the order left to right - perhaps the bird is 'quartering' the area.
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Several hours later (now after midnight) this Fox inspects the same area with very different intent.
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Another 'Baby Bunny' outside the Kitchen window.
Just what the Fox is looking for :-(
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Reeves' Muntjac Mum and Fawn spend a few minutes together at the Duck Pond.
Top middle - Mum stops for a drink.
Bottom - Mum gives the Fawn an affectionate lick over the head.
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We usually see this Green Carpet Moth as a visitor to our Moth trap, but this one settled on the top of this leaf in daytime. The green colour of the insect soon becomes bleached, so this one must be a fairly new emergence.
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UK midlands has been rather north to see many of the migratory Painted Lady Butterfly, but this year we do see at least this first one.
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A Cinnabar moth - named for the colour of Cinnabar - Mercury Sulfide (formula HgS).
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This 'Mole Cricket' landing on this leaf glowing golden Brown in the afternoon sunshine. Don't miss the antennae reaching almost to the top and right edges of the frame. Cricket sport these enormous antennae while Grasshoppers are much more modestly endowed. The 40mm length is for the body measured without antennae.
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Occasional Tawny Owl visits are now made by 2 different Owls - each preferring different perches. This latest likes the Meadow post.
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Perhaps twice a week at the moment a Tawny Owl visits the Meadow Post.
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The same Tawny Owl made two visits in 30 minutes just before midnight.
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The second visit fortuitously caught the bird departure 3 minutes after landing. The middle image, taken half-a-second before the launch, shows them obviously spotting 'something' to attack.
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This female Blackbird is carrying a beakful of 'delicious food' back to her nest camouflaged somewhere in the thousands of tree branches.
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An hour later we see this male Blackbird visiting the Meadow Post. The Post and the Meadow site are only about 10 metres apart so this may well be her mate.
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This male Blackbird takes his portrait at the tree-stump.
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Taken over 60.5 Seconds (2 pairs of pics half a second apart with a minute between them) the automatic camera catches this Magpie's arrival and departure at the Meadow Post.
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Some of the Cherry trees already have small cherries ripening. This Magpie has purloined one.
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Pied Wagtail visits to our patch are pretty rare in the last 10 years. These birds seem to relish aspects of the main-made world of railings, concrete and gravel.
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Here you see a group of 4 Dog Rose flowers, 3 of them having been sun-bleached white.
The intensity and speed of bleaching led us to wondering what was going on
with the UV (Ultra-violet) in sunlight this year. DEFRA just don't seem to offer
tables or charts comparing of this and previous years, but we found up-to-date
tables for a seaside town at
https://www.bearsbythesea.co.uk/wxuvsummary.php
Average readings don't help because they don't include the duration, but
the maximum values for April are concerning - April 2024 to April 2025
jumped 4.6 to 7.4 - a 65% increase.
We don't want to start yet another 'expose' but we would have expected a
jump this big to have generated sunscreen and cover-up warnings by now.
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Let's enjoy this beautiful pink Dog Rose while we can. Its the same flower as in the 4 flower image, photographed a minute before.
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This near mid-day Fox is unusual in having the fearsome mouth open.
Possibly the Fox is panting - like dogs panting is their primary cooling technique.
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Its still mostly dark as this Fox stops for a moment.
He subsequently crossed the ditch and exited through the hedge you see top left.
A series of backsides doesn't make for a very interesting montage!
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The late afternoon Fox wanders past Duck Pond.
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Last week we showed you the female Beautiful Demoiselle. This week its is the turn of the male to display his beauty. The wings are dark but not as a Band.
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A closer view of the complex Head and Thorax. The wings contain no muscles and move independently to create the fantastic manoeuvrability of these amazing creatures. They evolved about 300 Million years ago - 5 times older than the 'Jurassic Park' era. They used to be much bigger than our current species because they breath by diffusion and could manage the larger size in the richer Oxygen mix of air at that time.
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A few days after the sighting of the male Broad Bodied Chaser Dragonfly, we now see the female who was rather more obliging about having her Photo taken.
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An accurate montage of the female Broad-bodied Chaser Dragonfly returning to the stick from which she launched a few moments before. So these cover about 375mS (three eights of a second).
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Another landing of the female Broad-bodied Chaser Dragonfly again at 8 fps. (so just a quarter of a second here) . The direction of landing precludes an accurate montage - so here is a spread one instead.
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Mid afternoon two days later we find the same or another female Broad-bodied Chaser using a different dead stem as the base for her hunt.
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Dog Roses are having a spectacularly good year of growth. This is in the Farm's hedge outside our south boundary.
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This Dog Rose has freshly opened and retain the deepest pink. UV in sunlight will soon cause the colour to fade. The larger insect is a Thick-legged Flower Beetle ...
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... we see here from the same original image. Only the male Thick-legged Flower Beetles have the swollen legs. The body is a deep green - we have slightly overexposed the flower so that it is visible.
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The three stems of Purple Iris each now each have multiple flowers with more buds ready to open.
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Song Thrushes have always been occasional visitors. At this time we hadn't managed to discover this ones favourite 'anvil'.
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The Classic portrait of a Song Thrush
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Well now we can guess what this Song Thrush is using, at least sometimes, as his anvil - the stone at the Hedge bottom photo site.
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This Trail-cam happened to catch a 3 frame sequence of the male Pheasant expanding the feathers over his whole body. It's difficult to show the subtle expansion in a sequence of stills, so this is a 3 frame animation at 2 second intervals.
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The current male pheasant may have his eye shut, but his glorious plumage
shines out nevertheless.
If you look just left of the base of his tail (magnified in the insert) there are
intricate patterns on the feathers. a bit like ferns growing upwards.
The patterns appear on the right as well but not as well lit.
These patterns are oriented in the opposite direction to the feather growth.
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A smart fresh female Brimstone Butterfly fuelling up on a Red Campion flower
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There are several Crane-flies about - the Robins like them for feeding to their chicks. This one has so far evaded the beaks - it seems to be a species with no common name - Tipula cava.
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A patch of Aquilegia plants are flowering near the south wall of the house.
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Wild Roses are one of the delights of Spring.
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Our first sighting of a Broad-bodied Chaser Dragonfly this year - a male.
The matte blue back is actually a blue powder called Pruinescence that rubs
off very easily. The blue is also very bright in UV light.
The female does not have this characteristic blue, showing an orangey body.
To see the UV images see
https://www.moorhen.me.uk/uv/dragonflies_&_damselflies_03.htm
with the female on the PREVIOUS page.
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The Beautiful Demoiselle Damselflies have arrived on our patch. So far 2 females - seen momentarily near each other.
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The Beautiful Demoiselle Damselflies have arrived on our patch. So far 2 females - seen momentarily near each other.
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Woody Nightshade is really rather attractive. Nothing like as bad as Deadly Nightshade, the berries are still mildly poisonous. Only when checking the image did we discover that it is also known as 'Bittersweet', a name we were aware of but didn't know what it was.
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The hedges are awash with Elderberry flower clusters. Here on different stems we see the white bobbles of the buds (right) and the fully open flowers.
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Growing out of the Farm building heaps are a few Poppy flowers.
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A Robins Pin cushion only about 15mm (half inch) diameter that parasitise many wild Roses, apparently without causing much distress to the plants. This the smallest we have ever spotted at 1.5cm - about half an inch.
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This magnificent male Pheasant quietly walks through the hedge bottom.
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We hear male Pheasant calls from near & far many times a day.
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The food items being taken into the main pond island's Ash tree Nest Box are getting increasingly large to match the gapes of the chicks inside.
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Out first sighting of one of the Blue Tit chicks at the main pond island nest Box is this youngster peering out of the hole in the early morning.
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"After You"
Our last sighting was of the parents arriving together to give one of the last feeds
to the heaving row of beaks inside the nest.
By next day the chicks had fledged - and we missed them all!
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