A slight change of early morning scenery. This is Sheepcote Valley, and here are two of the sheep.
Brighton racecourse sits at the edge of the valley, and most mornings the local stables give their thoroughbreds a run out.
But the morning is about bird song as much as anything else, and I don't mean the cackle of the mapgpie…
Or even the bright calling of the robin…
The song that dominated this morning was from the aptly named song thrush. Smaller than the mistle thrush it has suffered a sharp decline in numbers in recent years and is now on our 'red list'. The song thrush has a bright repetitive song. It's simple but with a few small flourishes. You can listen to it here.
Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D EF and 400mm f/5.6L USM lens.
21 Comments
A pretty little bird, Words … what is the reason for the dwindling numbers?
Interestingly different pictures again 🙂 Third of the song thrush pictures is the best :up: I think song by song thrush is one of the loveliest among birds :hat: Here's another quite lovely example: http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Turdus_philomelos.ogg
Those two sheep, do they communicate mentally or just read each other's body language? 😛
You really get some amazing variety in your daily shots! My favorite is the sheep – very interesting pose!
Nice to see the sheep greeting each other. They're so easily overlooked but they are interesting creatures in their own right.
Sami, thanks for that link. I agree about the third shot. :sing:
Darko, I have a strong suspicion that sheep are psychic. :alien:
dW, from what I understand it is mainly 'loss of habitat', due to changes in farming. I also suspect that they have lost many gardens due to tidier gardening, fewer snails and no handy rocks on which to crack them open.
Adele, it's one of the more interesting policies of the local council to use sheep to graze some of the common land. It's been going for a few years and it's possible to become a volunteer shepherd!
Lois, thanks! The thing with sheep is there is very often no action at all to photograph so when something does happen I grab it.
We have the same thing in the North Downs but I'm not really a fan of the idea (whenever they put their sheep on a field, its wild mammal biodiversity seems to nosedive). Sheep amuse me as animals though. I got woken up by one sneezing outside my window when I was staying in Scotland a few years ago :eyes:
:happy:
Originally posted by SittingFox:
😆
Like a dog, I think – it was quite a while ago now.
Adele, a sheep with a cold! What on earth did it sound like?
Now I know!
Denis, thanks!
A sheep would probably sound about like a dog; they're about the same size (ignoring those annoying little pocket-sized yappers.).
I've only been awakened by animals outside my window once … two skunks decided to dispute the right-of-way in the driveway. The sound wasn't so bad… skunks sound about like cats arguing, but … well, if you've never been awakened from a sound sleep by a smell, count yourself lucky. It filled my room and was absolutely choking. I had to go out on the front porch. Oddly, the smell was completely gone by morning.
Originally posted by derWandersmann:
Or you had become so imbued with it…. Have to say it's not something I'd like to experience.
The smell is similar to fox but way stronger. You can smell it from inside a car while driving down a highway where a skunk has, at some point, seen fit to spray.
You've noticed that, have you? LOLOLOL
The odor is comprised of a mixture of mercaptans (check on that; I believe the chemists have been going about renaming things, as the astronomers did with Pluto), which are found in many other places … onions, garlic, etc. … and, in my experience, foxes don't smell like that at all … they just smell like animals, and sometimes animal poop. As I recall, the odor only comes out when you use something that breaks down mercaptans … my recollection is that mild acids will work, like vinegar.