Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
Our female Reeves' Muntjac Deer quietly browses at the meadow site.
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The Muntjac Deer Fawn makes a similar approach in the twilight of the following day.
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The little Reeves' Muntjac Fawn takes another selfie. We are particularly taken with the delicate 'en-pointe' appearance of the hoof at the rear, shown 2.5x enlarged in the insert.
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Ahh!
Mum Reeves' Muntjac Deer (left) licks the top of the Fawns head.
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An approach to the main pond suddenly spies a male Mallard head above the pond bank. Almost immediately launching, the camera followed the flight for almost 4 seconds with various degrees of success. Only later did we spot that a female Mallard took off simultaneously but chose to fly away from the camera - here at the top centre of the montage.
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Getting the male back into focus and frame caught this three-eights of a second sequence as the male streaked away.
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If you even hear a loud Mallard Duck quack it is NOT a male as we show here, but a female we credit with 'lungs of brass'. The male Quack is a much more refined affair!
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Speckled Wood Butterflies are showing up on the Meadow and the edge of the woodland.
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The male Orange tip Butterflies continue their endless search for a female.
We often see them chasing after any white butterfly they get near.
Here in an unusually 'static' opportunity we see this male in a sun-warmed
hedge making a real effort to mate with a Small White Butterfly (sex unknown)
who just wants to feed on the nectar.
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Some male Orange tip Butterflies now stop to feed on the recently flowering Lady's Smock (Cuckoo Flower) (aka Cuckoo flower)
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Some male Orange tip Butterflies now stop to feed on the recently flowering Lady's Smock (Cuckoo Flower) (aka Cuckoo flower)
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This set of images covers 7 minutes from an original 36 frames showing this
Badger enlarging the hole in the east side of Round Mound.
Top right and middle bottom images show the damp soil being ejected by
the Badger's powerful rear legs. The final frame shows that the
hole is now big enough for the badger to be leaving it!
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Near a really old wooden shed is this glorious apple blossom.
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Our main Magnolia bush / mini tree exploding into flower. An untidy tree but generous when flowering.
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Inherited with this house was this Red Apple cultivar.
Everything is red - the flowers, the wood, the sap, and all parts of the apple.
We have learned to enjoy red Apple Crumble!
The last few years has hardly produced any fruit but this year we at least
have loads of blossom to enjoy.
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The last few days has seen many visits to the Meadow Post by Magpies.
First a nicely judged landing.
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A misjudged arrival needing a scramble to reach the top of the post.
Misusing aeroplane parlance: 'Any landing you can walk fly away from is good'
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Magpies are still building/maintaining nests.
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This Magpie perched quietly in hedge overgrowth suddenly leapt backwards and then dived down out of sight. These are accurately positioned at about 7 fps.
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A Blackbird uses the top of this conifer as a singing post.
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A beautiful female Blackbird poised on the hedge bottom stone.
The mid-morning black background is piles of building rubbish on the farm's land.
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Normally when one of these plastic bunkers forces itself into a wildlife pic it's annoying. But here it provides a wonderful bland background to highlight this Blackbird in a tatty bit of hedge from the original house boundary (to which we added 2 acres for our plantings) showing the male Blackbird with a beak stuffed full of light twigs. He obviously wasn't going to show us where his nest was, so we left him to do his thing.
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For a short while the Black Poplar Trees were dropping Catkins every few seconds. This is the tree at the roadside of our access track dropping catkins - the frame rate is about 7 fps, Catkins don't 'collect' on the tarmac beneath because swirling air from vehicles speeding past the entrance sweeps them away.
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But on the grass a few metres from the Kitchen Window a huge Willow tree is also dropping Catkins which quietly lay on the grass.
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We inherited this Conifer with the house during which time it has grown from moderate to a huge mature tree/
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A comma Butterfly perched on the armrest of a wooden bench. With the wings partly open you see the vivid orange top of the wings, the transparency of the wings hiding the almost black underwing, but showing the white 'Comma' that gives the species it's name.
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Orange-tip butterflies continue to wiz by.
Here are two unrelated moments.
On the left you see the subtle Green pattern on the bottom of the wings
of both males and females. Only the males have the orange tips.
Better pics can be found at these links & rolling downwards for a few pics:-
https://www.moorhen.me.uk/imgofday/arch%202020%20may.htm#01
https://www.moorhen.me.uk/imgofday/arch%202014%20jul.htm#16
https://www.moorhen.me.uk/imgofday/arch%202024%20jun.htm#08
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A Fawn - Human encounter.
The Fawn carried on feeding but keeping a wary eye.
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The Reeves' Muntjac Deer Fawn rushes from place to place with the
excess of energy of many young creatures.
The Spots are fading as fast as the Fawn is growing.
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The female Reeves' Muntjac Deer steps quietly across the Meadow site.
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An evening Reeves Muntjac Deer Fawn makes another appearance at the hedge bottom.
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16 days without rain has allowed some areas of bare soil to becomes a bit gritty/dusty. It seems that the Badger is making the most of the opportunity for a little dust bathe, rolling around near the east hedge gap.
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2 hours apart these two obviously different Badgers stop at about the same place. Possibly this area is scent marked. There are several Badger latrines off-camera to the left.
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2 hours after midnight this Badger walks in through the east hedge
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This Fox inspects this recently replaced piece of wood.
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A pristine Fox enters the Hedge bottom site from the path at the rear, very much in hunting mode.
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Our first evidence of a Fox coming out of the hole in the east of Round Mound. A few days later we found loose soil scattered around the hole and the hole looked to have been enlarged at the visible depth.
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We guess (from the lack of faeces at this position) that this is a female Fox
scent marking on her way to the east hedge gap.
The positions in the montage are a lot more spread out than reality.
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One of the cherry trees has this globular flowering habit.
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Crab Apple blossom is appearing on some of our trees and in patches along some of the hedges.
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An all-white Daffodil beautifully catching the morning sunshine.
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"Aren't I magnificent".
This male Pheasant's ear-tufts are unusually prominent..
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A particularly obliging Red Kite gave us top of wing, flight, and bottom of wing moments.
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A particularly obliging Red Kite gave us top of wing, flight, and bottom of wing moments.
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A particularly obliging Red Kite gave us top of wing, flight, and bottom of wing moments.
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We planted groups Snakes-head Fritillary at many places on our site soon after we arrived. Unfortunately the then plentiful Rabbits appreciated their culinary value - a fate of many of our initial plantings. This little patch seems to be the sole survivors in a patch that never gets any full sunlight. Normally only the white variety appears, but this year we have one of each type.
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Celandine arrived on the site without any help from us. This patch is a few metres south the house.
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Cherry and Blackthorn Blossom seems to be particularly delightful this year.
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Gusts of wind cause showers of petals from the blossom laden trees &
hedges.
In some places the effect is reminiscent of a light snowfall
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The Reeves' Muntjac Deer Fawn is growing apace, and beginning to lose the spots.
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The Reeves' Muntjac Deer Fawn is growing apace, and beginning to lose the spots.
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This Reeves' Muntjac Deer quietly arrives at the back of the pond. We keep still and watch her progressing along the north bank of the pond and then back into the woodland.
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The Reeves' Muntjac Deer Fawn visited this Meadow site twice in 25 minutes.
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Rook feathers are amazingly glossy.
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Gangway!
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Broadcasting - Rook Style
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Rooks take this cooperative nesting really seriously.
You only have to wait a few minutes before the non-sitting bird returns
to the nest, often with the gift of a beakful of something for the sitting
bird.
It would be easy to assign female and male roles here, but studying
moorhen on our main pond tells us that the roles are far from cut-and-
dried.
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We haven't previously noticed the subtle ring of close spaced 'bumps' in the ring around Wood Pigeon eyes.
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An apparently unblemished over-wintered Peacock Butterfly.
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Spring is an awkward time for some creatures - everything is starting but so far the only bulk of food is catkins. This Grey Squirrel has raided his buried cache for this black object - probably a conker.
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Just before dawn this Fox is fixating on a potential mouthful.
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The sheet of Corrugated Iron by the side of the path across the meadow gets really quite hot if the sun is out even on cool days. Butterflies love to warm themselves on it, as well as many other insects.
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A Peacock Butterfly warming themselves on the warm metal.
This one has had an encounter with a bird, judging by the beak shaped
notch out of the back of the right wing.
It takes far more damage than this to effect their ability to fly.
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This (we think female) Brimstone Butterfly landed on a desiccated leaf on the ground, and stayed long enough to grab a photo. Brimstone Butterflies seem tireless - seeming rarely to stopping in their search for a mate.
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The Bee-flies are about - a sure sign of Spring. They look dangerous, but are harmless to humans.
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A rather satisfying Magpie sequence.
The left two pics are half-a-second apart.
The right pair are also half-a-second apart, exactly 1 minute after the first pair.
The right two are accurately montaged.
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This years husband to the female Pheasants displays his magnificence at the hedge bottom.
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A female Pheasant visits the Meadow site.
The Meadow area could contain several Pheasant nests,
but having once trod on a nest many years ago we no longer
venture into this area during the breeding season.
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The Reeves' Muntjac Fawn seems to have boundless energy!
Mounds of farm waste on the other side of the hedge makes it look
like night, but it is actually still daylight.
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The Reeves' Muntjac Deer Fawn investigating the large hole in the Round Mound.
Don't fall in and get stuck! - The wild world is so full of hazards.
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No sign of Mum as the Reeves' Muntjac Deer Fawn paces by Round Pond.
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Shortly after midnight this Badger walks from the path behind this hedge to investigate the hedge bottom site.
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Our site doesn't contain any Badger Setts (well none that we know of), but we get a lot of Badger visits.
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The dominant Tit species at the moment is the Great Tit, here nicely poised on the edge of the hedge bottom stone.
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A rather poised male Blackbird.
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Rarely seen together, this pair of Blackbirds appeared about an hour apart at almost the same place. The plumage is always very different, but their sizes very similar.
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The tangle of mostly disused cables for the phone connection is becoming a regular perch for the hoard of Rooks nesting around us.
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The Mice have made a hole right in front of the log at the Meadow site. The Rook goes exploring, not for mice but for invertebrates and spilled corn.
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There are dozens of clumps of various types of Daffodils in sunny patches on our plot, This one is facing south just north of the Duck Pond.
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Many of the Birch trees have exploded with leaves with that unmistakable Spring Green.
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The only Laurel on our site is now many metres high, and has many clumps of flowers. This clump contains 3 florets in stages from closed buds to fully open flowers.
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A clump of Primrose flowers in a very sheltered patch at the rarely disturbed back of the garage.
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Catkins are a time of glut for many creatures.
This Blue Tit delicately samples pussy willow catkins.
Sorry about the quality into the glare of the sun.
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Grey Squirrel have no interest in table manners - bite off a twigful of buds and carry it down to a fork on the tree where, for us, the little devil disappeared.
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Arrival at the Duck Pond find this female Mallard duck who we suspect has a nest on this pond. We took the pic and left before we frightened her away - ducks are having a bad time with Bird Flu, and need all the help they can get.
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Robins now reliably appear has we circulate our plot. Here this Robin appears near the 'Meadow site' singing his little heart out.
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A couple of Red-legged partridges appears unexpectedly on the side of the Round Mound. They ground nest and can't be looking for a nest site here.
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Attracted to the blossom for a feed, this Peacock Butterfly worked systematically around the clusters of flowers. For an over-wintered individual this one is in remarkably good physical state and colour.
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This Comma Butterfly is perched on one of last years Thistle heads. Another over-wintered insect in remarkably good condition.
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This Red Kite had obviously found a large area of rising air, and was making 'lazy' (i.e. large diameter) circles in the sky above, quietly rising until lost in the haze.
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2 minutes after the Red Kite this Buzzard entered the arena making similar behaviour.
Here we see the bird flying against a pair of close spaced parallel contrails.
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It's unusual to see such parallel contrails made at the same time - air traffic control is
really rather good at not letting aircraft too close together.
But here we show an extended version of the montage with the two aircraft apparently
flying 'in tandem' across the whole sky at the same separation and speed.
We have to assume some sort of intentional formation flying.
This montage is a 'construction' but we have the camera originals on file.
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