Category Archives: Birds

Rural Landscapes

March 10, 2014 by Words | 6 Comments

For a change I’m going to focus on a few rural landscape shots today. The weekend had left Falmer Pond in less than pristine condition. There was a fair amount of rubbish around, and this:

Rubbish bin discarded in Falmer Pond.

I’ve no idea why anyone would throw a rubbish bin in a pond, but then there’s no accounting for some folk. I was pleased to see it had been retrieved during the morning and was back on its plinth by the side of the road.

Later in the day I headed out to Ridge Road. There are some stunning views of the Downs from there but I ended up walking through a small wooded area. This wasn’t intentional. I’d gone along the path by the fields and found my route back to the road cut off by some new fencing. It was either go back the way I’d come or cut through the wood to get beyond the fencing. I’m glad I did.

Woodland path

Woodland path

Woodland path

I can’t quite bring myself to include no wildlife, so here’s a greylag coming in to land on the pond this morning. It’s almost a companion shot to the duck from last week.

Greylag goose landing in Falmer Pond,

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

Also posted in Landscape, water birds Tagged , , , |

Why Leave the Garden?

March 9, 2014 by Words | 6 Comments

Why leave the garden? It was another beautiful sunny day. Quite mild, and more time for getting on with the spring clear up. Not that it’s too much of a hardship with so much to see just by looking around. And there’s one big surprise at the end.

Overhead, several buzzards flew over late morning. The gulls chased them without ever really getting serious; just enough to shepherd the buzzards directly over the garden.

Common buzzard over garden

Common buzzard over garden

Common buzzard over garden

The gulls were rather more upset when a heron crossed the sky. They cleared a large passage for it, and by the sound of them were clearly not happy. It’s the first time I’ve seen a heron from the garden so although it was some distance away and the shot isn’t up to much, it’s here as part of the ongoing record.

grey heron over Woodingdean

A good part of the afternoon was spent removing weeds and leaves from the garden pond. It was somewhat neglected last year and was becoming a bit of a tangle. I clean it out by hand and spotted several newts (plus I inadvertently caught one, but quickly returned it to the water). The job’s only part done, but it does mean that tonight I was able to take this photo of one of the many newts.

smooth newt

Slightly off topic is this next shot. It was taken during the day but I’ve converted it to black and white. I had hoped to see a plane leave trails directly across the moon (I think I’ve got a shot like that from several years ago), but this will do.

moon and plane

The big (and very welcome) surprise comes towards the end of these video clips from the trail camera. Plenty of foxes, and a couple of badgers to enjoy.

Watch the video and you’ll know what I’m looking forward to seeing soon!

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens except the newt which was taken with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens.

Also posted in Badger, Bird of Prey, Foxes, Moon, Newt, water birds Tagged , , , , , |

Saturday Selection (birds frog fox)

March 9, 2014 by Words | 4 Comments

It’s been one of those quiet pottering days, some of the time spent in the garden but with a brief walk out on the Downs on the way back from taking yet more garden cuttings to the local recycling centre. I’ll start though with a photo from last night. It’s a lone frog in the pond, though a noisy one. We didn’t do well with frogs last year, so I’m not sure whether we’ll get any spawn this time around.

frog

Pretty seems to turn into a shy fox in daylight. She does come by, but today refused to move beyond the back of the garden.

fox at back of garden

The local recycling centre is about a mile and half from here, just a short drive and to get to it I have to drive past the entrance to Sheepcote Valley. Sheepcote is my favourite kestrel site, but there weren’t any around today. Instead of roaming the valley I headed down one of the footpaths.

footpath at Sheepcote Valley

It was sunny but cool, and the skylarks were hovering overhead filling the air with their distinctive trilling. They really do make it feel like spring has arrived.

skylark

British Birds

Skylarks are meadow birds and never venture too far from the fields. Goldfinches, however, are tempted to come into gardens and a small group (scarcely enough to call a flock) were flitting in and out during the afternoon. Mainly they hid out of sight in the higher branches, but just briefly they showed enough of themselves to warrant a photo.

Pair of goldfinches

Camera note: all photos taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens with the exception of the frog which was captured with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens.

Also posted in Amphibians, Foxes, frog Tagged , , , , |