Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
An hour after sunset the Grey plumaged Tawny Owl makes a two minute stay on the Meadow Post. The right 2 images are only half-a-second apart.
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Two hours later the 'brown' Tawny Owl visits first the Meadow Post and 7 minutes later makes a back to camera landing on the Kitchen perch.
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Tawny Owls visit the Meadow Post perhaps a few times a week. This is the individual with Brown plumage.
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The Laurel tree at the east end of the main pond has been 'invaded' by Rose stems for several years. The Rose Hips are much appreciated by Grey Squirrels.
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A more detailed view of the Squirrel from the above.
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This Grey Squirrel's Drey must be huge for the quantity of bedding taken to it, but the dense conifer means we haven't spotted it yet.
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Banana skin mostly goes into the compost bucket, but this piece on the Kitchen bird table was appreciated by this Squirrel who spent several minutes nibbling the remaining pulp from the inside of the skin.
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NOT a montage - this pair of Badgers really did follow the Deer through the east hedge gap.
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Over 1 night we found several visits by Badgers coming and going near the east hedge gap. Here is a little 'celebration'.
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The mud being washed over the disused concrete track catches some more Badger Paw-prints.
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An almost ghostlike image to the left of the male Pheasant show how well the
camouflage of the female pheasant works.
This whole image pic has been normally processed to maximise contrast,
but she still resembles a ghostly shadow.
The white outline along the top of the male's tail is the effect of sharpening
in the camera rather than any fiddling or montaging
Foxes (we assume the primary predator of sitting Pheasant) are Dichromatic
(rather than Human's Trichromatic) so are Red-Green colour blind - this
camouflage may be particularly effective.
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One of our dominant male Pheasants for once nicely fitting the photo-frame.
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Walking through the blocked gate, our arrival surprises this male Pheasant who promptly walks down the slope of the mound on the farmers margin and disappears though one of the many passable gaps in the south hedge. The neck-ring and colour indicate that this is the '2nd' male Pheasant.
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The 'primary' male Pheasant stomps through the south hedge gap.
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The last 'supermoon' of 2025 is here a few minutes from setting through a hazy sky to the WNW, as the sun rises glowing orange as it rises through the similar haze to the ESE.
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This glorious sunrise foretold a rainy day.
Accurately montaged from 6 images, this strip covered about 180 degrees.
We have this montage at half camera resolution available on request.
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About 1 minute later this more detail image capture the sunrise from a perspective avoiding the 11kV power cables
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This tree on the horizon provides an attractive foreground for the vivid sunrise.
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This Badger inspects the large hole on the east of the Round Mound - currently used by Rabbits.
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This Fox inspects the large hole on the east of the Round Mound - currently used by Rabbits.
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This Fox slinks across the Hedge bottom to take his selfie.
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Several visits of Foxes around the large hole in the east of Round Mound. On the right we see what looks like a female scent marking.
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Another Fox visit is obviously disturbed by a click or the 'flash' from the Trail Cam 'watching' this side of Round Mound.
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Never having thought much about the white bar across the base of the beak of a Wood Pigeon, seeing this one with a rather protuberant bar got out Google for a search. It is called a cere (or more properly operculum) starting smooth in a young bird and getting lumpier with age. It is also effected by the breeding cycle. Its basic function is to protect the nostrils and filter air.
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This Wood Pigeon twisted in the air rather than fly over us.
Many Pigeons perform long powered climbs and then graceful glides alternately, such
is their overabundance of flight power. Its lovely to watch, but very difficult
to illustrate.
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Decades of photographing male Pheasant and Grey Squirrel confrontations
this is the first year where a Pheasant consistently sees off the Squirrel rather
than the other way round.
Animals really are individuals, each with their own personalities.
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But at the Round pond water trough we see the more normal behaviour - some sort of Corvid (Crow family) being given the threat of claws by the regular Grey Squirrel at this site.
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The male Pheasant continues to be ridiculously photogenic - here arriving in a glorious spread of tail feathers - but as usual settling down for a feed.
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At the hedge bottom this male Pheasant reaches down to pick up some tiny morsel of food.
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Another sighting of a female Pheasant. Soon they will all but 'vanish' again as they start incubating eggs.
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The next 3 montages show a single flight of this Red Kite flying south along the 11kV cables to our West. Each montage is about half-a-second of flight.
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This female Kestrel took advantage of strong breeze to mix a hovering hunt with standing on posts, railing and tree branches to look for prey. The bird was as usual basically stationary in the air, so we have spread the images top downwards to enjoy multiple moments.
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Surprisingly, after sunset the female Sparrowhawk spends a few minutes on the meadow Post. We guess that she is really hungry to be out hunting this late.
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Next day it is the male Sparrowhawk flashing by the Kitchen window.
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Two different Tawny Owls each stop on the Meadow Post for a couple of minutes
nearly an hour apart. Note that the plumage of the two birds have distinctly different
colours - Grey and 'Tawny'.
Apparently plumage colour is strictly inherited, so we may be able to tell these 2 visitors apart.
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The 'Grey' Tawny Owl makes an at least 5 minute visit to the Meadow Post.
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The south hedge gap seems to be one of the favourite entry (and exit) places for the Reeves' Muntjac Deer, female on the left, male on the right, with broken left antler, even if the images are 2 days apart.
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This Reeves' Muntjac Deer is undoubtedly fleeing from the appearance of a pair of humans who were completely unaware of the Deer at the time.
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4 minutes later the photographer spots probably the same Deer feeding on the East inner path perhaps 20m from the above escape. This time in much less of a panic she wandered off and 'vanished'.
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Our next outing found this female Reeves' Muntjac Deer hiding in an overgrown patch along the edge of the 'orchard'.
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All of the Grey Squirrels are undoubtedly collecting fallen leaf bedding for their Dreys. But this Squirrel has their Drey up the large conifer just a couple of metres left of this camera's view, so this one gets all the pics!
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Grey Squirrel looking poised with front paws on the log.
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Next day, most probably a different Squirrel was at the bottom of the Farm Road's 100 or so young Lombardy Poplars trees, ripping to bits a Fir cone probably fallen from the conifer inside our South East corner.
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Do we detect a wistful look in the eyes of this Squirrel?
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This Magpie is stepping along the Hedge Bottom stone, eyeing the ground as they go.
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A sort of 'touch-and-go' landing on the Meadow Post by this Magpie.
These two images about half-a-second apart.
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This Tawny Owl takes his 'selfie' a couple of hours after sunset.
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There are suddenly female Pheasants making visits.
Our first sighting was a few minutes after this male visited the hedge bottom,
here montaged at the same scale; about the same height, but slimmer build
and of course nothing like the wonderful tail.
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15 minutes later this trail cam in the Orchard catches 4 females in a row along the path. (NOT a montage)
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An hour later we actually catch male and female Pheasants together, here by Duck Pond.
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On the left this Grey Squirrel is nibbling some bruised Nectarine. 25 minutes later the partly eaten nectarine is put aside in favour of an over-ripe strawberry.
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Time to have another go at breaking into the peanut feeder!
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Walking back to the house often finds this rather small Grey squirrel at the front of the house.
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A rummage through the leaves at the hedge bottom usually locates some item to eat.
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2 male Pheasant individuals visiting the hedge bottom about an hour apart. We anticipate some dominance-determining fight between these two fine specimens, but we would be very lucky to get to see any of it.
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3 days later, this time at the Meadow site, we get a closer view of the fascinating fern-like patterns on the feathers near the base of the tail.
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A 'compact' view of one of the male Pheasants preening his feathers.
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Sunset is now at about 16:00 (4 p.m.) so this Fox has had a couple of hours of darkness before they appear searching the Meadow site for their next mouthful.
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A slant-eyed Fox makes for the south hedge gap.
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This healthy Fox entering at the south hedge gap is already intent on finding a meal.
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A sad sight of a Fox with very bad Mange exiting the site though the South hedge gap.
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An immaculate male Chaffinch visits the hedge bottom. We would show you more females but the bumble-foot on their legs is very off-putting.
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This Robin, territory holder for the front of the house, watched us from the west hedge.
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At the concealed water bowl at the meadow site we see just this one immaculate Goldfinch.
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This Kite glides slowly overhead using the strong wind to provide lift.
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A daily walk was dominated by a seemingly endless series of sightings of (we think a single) female Kestrel as we did our routine circle of the farm paths. First an automatic camera caught her landing on the top of the Meadow Post.
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As we exited the back of the house half an hour later she was initially on a single small branch over the Meadow. As we moved to the front of the house she had perched on the top of telephone pole, then to an 11kV cable, then to the top of the concrete mains pole, then hovering over the fields to our south, and finally on one of the cables carrying mains to our house as we returned to the back door.
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Next day we find the female Kestrel partially obscured in this Hawthorn tree watching us watching her.
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A rather atmospheric moment as the Kestrel drop in at the Meadow Post
for an at least 5 minute stay.
The translucence of backlit feathers makes some delightful effects.
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A female Blackbird starts the new day with a look around the hedge bottom.
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Presumably the territory holder of this patch of the meadow looks like he has
stepped on to the frozen water in the hidden bird bath.
What DO birds make of Ice and Snow?
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This Reeves' Muntjac Deer enters the Hedge bottom from the path at the rear, legs all in apparent disarray as usual.
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A minute or two later she has moved the 20m or so to the Duck Pond to take a drink from the water dish.
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The generous show of Haws (Hawthorn Berries) this year is being taken full advantage of by many of the Grey Squirrels.
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Our plot was graced this week by another two visits by a Chinese Water Deer. Here on a Wednesday apparently happily stepping out towards the well used Farm Road outside our East boundary.
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4 days later at about the same time she again appears by the East hedge gap, but this time already
leaving, but within a minute turning back and not seen again.
This is a Sunday when the track is a lot less busy, but maybe something was going past and she
decided to use a different way out.
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A final selfie on the way out.
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Just this one cold night this week saw the Tawny Owl on the Meadow Post.
There is frost visible on the right side of the post top.
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This badger spends a minute or two foraging near the south hedge gap before disappearing through the hedge into the farmland beyond.
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4 hours later this Badger (maybe the same one) climbs out of the still dry ditch.
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Chinese Water Deer are infrequent visitors to the area, and even less often seen inside our patch. Three different cameras recorded the visit that lasted about an hour. Right to left:- The Hedge Bottom, the east hedge gap ...
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... and finally a montage of her visit to the Duck pond.
She hasn't become familiar with the water bowl like the regular visitors,
so naturally reaches into the pond for a drink.
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This female Kestrel is getting atypically tolerant of our presence and on occasion when we think we have unsettled her she actually lands closer than before. Here she was perched on a railing to the south of our patch and flew back into our patch to land we know not where.
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What we assume is a single female Kestrel has perhaps 10 regular hunting perches around the meadow. Here is the one closest to the house in the top of a conifer.
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From another of her hunting perches the Kestrel female flies to another of her favourite perches inside a conifer - this time mostly obscured from us nosey humans.
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Fortunately one of the female Kestrel's favourite hunting perches is the Meadow Post which has an automatic camera.
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A thirsty Fox stops to lap up water from the dish by Duck Pond.
The Fox briefly looks up as a Reeves' Muntjac Deer goes by before
getting back to the water.
Having had trouble getting thirsty creatures to accept water in artificial containers
we suppose we shouldn't be surprised that now all the ponds have water that can be
accessed they continue to use the more convenient and now familiar source.
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Some different species continue to use the water containers even though there is now 'natural' water available.
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Some different species continue to use the water containers even though there is now 'natural' water available.
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Some different species continue to use the water containers even though there is now 'natural' water available.
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Enough for a Double Bed?
As far as we know Squirrel Dreys are single occupant (+ kits in season) affairs.
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Squirrels are making the most of the bumper harvest of Rose hips . Mostly Squirrels are so concealed by intervening branches it's impossible to get a pic, but this one perhaps 20m away on the north side of the pond was visible through a house window.
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One or more Grey Squirrels frequent the grass area outside our east hedge. As we approach they generally sprint off, almost always though the bottom of the east hedge to our patch.
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A gorgeous sticky mess of Cherry pulp and stones left over from jam making.
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One of our local Carrion Crows perched on a bent-over Lombardy branch.
This branch is normally nearly vertical, so the bird must have landed awkwardly
sideways on the stem knowing that it will bend over to make a comfortable footrest.
Who says that Birds are all Bird-brained.
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We haven't seen Rooks taking an interest in Acorns before, but then we have
never had such a glut of Acorns before.
We wondered what Rooks did with them, and Google's AI generated this
seemingly accurate summary we present here (USA spellings untouched):-
Rooks do collect and hoard acorns, a behavior known as "caching," to eat
during the winter. They bury the acorns to save them and have been observed
to remember the cache locations to retrieve them later.
Collecting: Rooks often collect acorns in large, social groups
but bury them individually to prevent theft. They can transport
acorns for several kilometers from the source.
Burying: They bury individual acorns in grassy areas by making a
hole with their beak and covering it with soil or leaves.
Retrieving: In the winter, they will return to their hidden
caches to dig up and eat the acorns. Rooks have a remarkable
memory and can relocate caches made months earlier.
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Whee - this Grey Squirrel leaps over the Woodland site.
A look at the mouth shows an Acorn on its way to the winter cache.
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