Author Archives: Words

Seen from the Garden

June 8, 2014 by Words | 4 Comments

The weather has been good this weekend, almost hot; and fine enough to spend more time in the garden. Inevitably most of the wildlife activity takes place at night (see video clip further down), but there were two or three interesting sightings to report.

The first of these is ‘seen from the garden’, but is actually taking place a few doors away from us. We always have herring gulls in the vicinity, and they usually appear to go through a nesting routine. This, however, is the first year I recall seeing any chicks emerge as a result of all their activity. Not the best shot, but cute in its way. I’ve only seen one chick, but there could be more (my line of sight isn’t great and the chick seems to spend a lot of its time on the far side of the chimney).

Herring gull and chick

We also have wrens locally, and late yesterday afternoon I spotted one perched in between the slats on the fence at the rear of the garden. It turned out to be a fledgling. I managed a couple of shots before it disappeared back through to the garden beyond.

Fledgling wren

Fledgling wren

The one photo from today is a hummingbird hawk moth, a large day-flying moth which is very well named.

Hummingbird hawk moth

To complete the set, I’ve resorted to a video sequence. There are two of the regular garden foxes here, plus the female badger which was shown in another recent video clip. The foxes look a bit on the tatty side. That’s partly their natural state at this time of year (cubs + moulting makes for a bad hair day), but they also show signs of recovering from mange and that skinny brush is a lot healthier than it was a few weeks ago.

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. Video from the Bushnell Trophy Cam HD.

Posted in Badger, Behaviour, Birds, Foxes, mange, moth Tagged , , , , , , |

New chicks, fledglings and some colourful adults

June 7, 2014 by Words | 4 Comments

It really was a good day today. Warm sunshine, and so much to see. I gathered far too many photos so what’s here barely scratches the surface. I’ll try to keep things simple.

The day started down at Falmer Pond where I took some lovely shots of a trio of juvenile moorhens, and one or two of the heron. No room for any of those. Instead I’ll open with a photo of the male great spotted woodpecker.

Great spotted woodpecker

I did get one or two shots of the chicks high in their tree, but nothing to improve on yesterday’s photos, so I’ll leave those out.

Staying on the woodpecker theme, the much larger green woodpecker is also quite active. I saw this one (another male) in the woods at lunchtime.

Green woodpecker

The big news though is that the local colony of herring gulls have been busy and we have lots of new chicks on the roofs at work. This first photo is by the car park.

Herring gulls and chicks

And this little family group is nesting outside a window of one of the main buildings. She has three chicks, and produced a simialr clutch in the same location last year.

Herring gulls and chicks

Herring gulls and chicks

Herring gulls and chicks

We also have two breeding pairs of lesser black backed gulls. No sign of their chicks yet, but they were a couple of weeks or so behind the herring gulls in 2013. It will be interesting to see if there’s a similar gap this year.

Finally, a short sequence of blue tits, a bird I’m paying close attention to at the moment. The fledglings are getting to that very active and demanding) stage and were hopping between the feeding station and the surrounding trees. This is a very small selection from today’s photos.

blue tit fledgling

blue tit fledgling

blue tit fledgling

blue tit fledgling

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.

Posted in Behaviour, Birds, Wildlife Tagged , , , , |

Great Spotted Chicks! (plus some Brighton oddities)

June 6, 2014 by Words | 2 Comments

I’m going to start with the photos taken towards the end of the day. I mentioned a couple of days ago that I’d tried and failed to spot the young great spotted woodpeckers high in the tree at the edge of our works car park. Well I was back there at the end of the day today and to my delight the youngsters broke cover.

They are slightly higher up the tree than I’d orginally thought, and seem to have two locations (one of which offers just enough of angle for the camera to cut through the foliage to the nest hole). So here are my first photos of the young great spotteds, looking very scrawny but clearly with plenty of energy to harangue their diligent parents.

Great spotted woodpecker chick

Great spotted woodpecker chick

And one with the adult feeding the chick in the higher of the two nest holes.

Great spotted woodpecker chicks and adult

As for the oddities in the title, I spent 20 minutes on Brighton seafront at lunchtime today and among the various so-so photos of herring gulls (nothing interesting) took these photos of various pieces of street furniture. They each amused me for their natural (manufactured?) oddness. The first is a CCTV camera which was perched high above the pavements but looks more like one of those little plastic toys posed as a weightlifter.

A CCTV camera posing as a weightlifter

A little further along the front I came across a disco ball out in the sunshine. It was at about street level, above a beachfront cafe. The reflections offer a lo-tech pixelated view of Brighton.

Pixelated view of Brighton seafront

The final shot is nothing less than a giant watchstrap, masquerading as a seaside Big Wheel ride. Not quite the London Eye, but startling for its lack of visual appeal.

Big Wheel on Brighton seafront looking like a wristwatch strap

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.

Posted in Birds, coastal, Landscape, Seaside Views, Uncategorized Tagged , , , , |