Category Archives: Landscape

Great Spots

December 10, 2013 by Words | 2 Comments

The sunrise this morning was beautiful, the sky turning a rich gold as the sun crept up from below the South Downs at Falmer. This photo doesn’t nearly do it justice.

Sunrise over the South Downs

The cormorant was back, once again taking to the trees but I’ll skip those images today as lunchtime brought with it a rather special treat. Not these cute black-headed gulls posing on parallel tree stumps… (but I like the photo so I’m including it)

black-headed gulls

The treat was another lover of dead wood, a great spotted woodpecker. I spotted her flying across the churchyard and eventually located her in one of the trees next to the local farm.

Female great spotted woodpecker

For once a woodpecker proved to be moderately cooperative. These are substantial crops, but she kept mainly in view and only scuttled a little way up to the higher branches.

Female great spotted woodpecker

Female great spotted woodpecker

The other good spot of the day was seeing one of the local rats down among the roots that edge over the side of the pond. The colder weather and rising water level has made spotting the rats much more tricky that it was in the early autumn, and most days they aren’t in evidence at all. This one did catch my eye as it shot along the bank and then (like the woodpecker) proved surprisingly comfortable with the camera.

rat

rat

rat

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

Also posted in Birds, rats, sunrise Tagged , , |

Water Rat plus some time on the farm

November 15, 2013 by Words | 2 Comments

The rats are becoming ever more elusive as the water level rises, but they are nothing if not adaptable and I spotted this one today perched on a thick branch overhanging the water. I had to struggle to gain a clear line of sight to it through all the overhanging branches. These are the best I could do.

Rat

Rat

This final shot of the rat gives a better idea of its location. Its taken directly into the sun bouncing of the water’s surface.

rat

Those were this morning. Later in the day I went out to the fields where the sheep were forming an orderly queue as the farmer arrived with their feed.

Sheep

Over head a small flock of fieldfares gave warning of cold weather to come.

Fieldfares

Fieldfare

A pony snuggled down in the weak sunshine…

pony

And somewhere in this photo there’s a fox. Can you find it. I didn’t see it until I was processing the pictures. The animals at the top of the photos are horses… that’s the only clue.

horses and fox

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

Also posted in Birds, Farming, Foxes, horse, Sheep, South Downs National Park Tagged , , , , |

Collared Doves (after the storm)

October 29, 2013 by Words | 2 Comments

The Big Storm of 2013 didn’t really happen for Sussex. We had strong winds, gusts up to around 70mph, and minor damage (some trees and fences down). We missed the brunt of it, but things were a lot worse elsewhere. Locally we were pretty much unscathed, and the worst of the damage I saw was a panel hanging loose on the roof of the Amex Stadium (seen here being fixed before Brighton’s game this evening).

Amex Stadium

The ground this morning was sodden, and the pond at Falmer has filled significantly. I spotted one broken branch and plenty of leaf debris on the ground. The usual birds were around, but the most noticeable sight was the flock of collared doves who were gathered in a large group on the willow in the centre of the pond.

Collared doves

Collared doves

Collared doves

The cormorants are still around. There were three at the pond today, two hiding at the edge of the small island.

cormorants

The third was busy doing exercises 😉

British Coastal Birds

cormorants

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

Also posted in Amex Community Stadium, Birds, water birds Tagged , , |