Category Archives: Bird of Prey

Peregrine Falcon

February 24, 2014 by Words | 4 Comments

Just one photo today… taken in the garden. This beautiful peregrine cleared the skies as it flew overhead.

Peregrine

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

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Three Foxes and a Badger (video)

February 22, 2014 by Words | 3 Comments

I’ll come to the video in a moment, but first some photos of one of the three buzzards that flew over the garden this morning. We do see them occasionally up here, but it’s a long time since I’ve seen three together (though only two feature in these photos, and I failed to get a group shot).

This is the first buzzard (which was closely followed by a second one). It flew across the rear of the garden, so I only had a few moments to get a photo.

Common buzzard

The third of the buzzards circled overhead for a while. These are two of the better photos. Both are hefty crops.

Common buzzard

Common buzzard

Now to the video. It’s a series of clips taken over the past two nights via the garden trail camera. The sequences include two clips of a badger, plus the three most regular fox visitors. Pretty you know (she’s by far the smaller of the group). There’s a large healthy male (Nicked Ear) who has been around for some time. The third fox has shown up up several times recently. He appears to have a mangey brush, though the rest of him doesn’t look too bad for now.

Finally, a photo of Pretty taken a couple of hours ago.

Fox on garden step

Camera note: all buzzard photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. The fox was photographed with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens. Video via the Bushnell Trophy HD.

Also posted in Badger, Behaviour, Foxes, mange Tagged , , , |

Down at the Pond and into the Woods

February 18, 2014 by Words | 2 Comments

Well it was dry today. Dull, with little or no sign of the sun until it was setting in the late afternoon. But dry is good; better than many of the days we’ve had in recent months so I won’t complain.

The early morning sequence was taken at Falmer Pond. It’s still very quiet there at the moment, but I did spot one cute little rat making its way carefully around the edge of the pond. The main route is now via the water.

Out to the edge of tree…
Rat at the edge of Falmer Pond

A strong paddle across the open water…
Rat swimming in Falmer Pond

And then clamber up into something a little more solid and secure.
Rat at the edge of Falmer Pond

I gave the pond a miss at lunchtime, and instead donned some wellington boots and headed off into the woodland at the edge of campus. It’s the first time I’ve been in the woods since the storms, and sure enough there were numerous fallen branches. I think this tree probably came down in a previous storm. It looked too well-set and comfortable to be a recent casualty.

Fallen tree in Westlain Plantation

The next shot was also taken in the woods. It’s the only usable one I managed (and it barely even qualifies as that), but having seen a buzzard flying in and around (and over) the trees several times while I was there I need something to record the encounter. Most of the time it was flying just over the trees, but once or twice it swooped along the paths. I’ve spotted buzzards here before so it wasn’t an unexpected sighting, just a rather good one.

buzzard

Back in the garden I’ve switched the trail camera back over to video. There were a couple of decent clips last night of Pretty with two different foxes (separate encounters). I’ll edit some sequences together over the next few days, but close tonight’s blog with a photo of her from a few minutes ago.

Fox

Camera note: rat and buzzard photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens; woodland scene taken with the EF17-40mm f/4L USM lens; and the fox with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM.

Also posted in Foxes, Landscape, rats, Wildlife Tagged , , , , |