Whenever I think I know what I'm going to post, something comes along and forces a change of plan. I got some nice shots of jackdaws and moorhens today, plus some of the local greylags. Those were all taken between attempting to photographing the swallows and house martins as they swooped over the pond. Space and time precludes including everything, so I'll stick with the swallows (plus one house martin), and then add a few shots of the fox family who excelled themselves today.
To start then, a short sequence of a swallow low over the pond. The shots are far from perfect, but I'm slowly getting closer to the kind of image I want.
This is one of a house martin.
And then the foxes take over. The long summer evenings do mean that I'm getting more than my fair share of opportunities to photograph the foxes. All I need to do is step outside and, invariably, a fox shows up. These first two shots are of Red.
This, of course, is Pretty.
The third of the regular cubs is Bully Boy. He sports the best brush of the three of them.
It's at night things get a little more complicated. The adults are beginning to tolerate me, and though they still maintain a healthy wariness I am, with care, managing to photograph them. This is Shy Boy (who ironically is the least shy of all the adults) with one of the cubs.
This is a second of the adults (male).
The final shot includes three adults (if you'll let me count the ear in the bottom right of the frame). Nicked Ear is crouching low on the right. She's still very cautious. The serious looking fox on the left is a male (wrongly identified in a previous post as female). Shy Boy is the 'ear' in the bottom right corner. The cubs are Red and Pretty.
Camera note: all daylight shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. The night shots of the adult foxes taken with the EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens.
derWandersmann
18 Jul 2013Quite a fox party, Words! And I love the bird shots …
Any reason for Shutterbug's absence lately?
gdare
20 Jul 2013Interesting photo of the swallows. Are they doing that to drink or to catch insects?
SittingFox
20 Jul 2013Wonderful vulpine portraits! 🙂
Words
23 Jul 2013Adele, thanks! Definitely a fox-filled year here!
Words
23 Jul 2013dW, I'm pleased the adult foxes are being a little more cooperative. I'm not sure where Shutterbug has got to, but they do change territories every now and then and he may well have a family somewhere else.
Words
23 Jul 2013Darko, the swallows are sweeping up insects just above the surface.