Tag Archives: badger

Mating Greylags and More Fox and Badger Video Fun

February 24, 2014 by Words | 6 Comments

More sunshine, and signs that spring might be upon us. Likely it’s a false dawn, but we can but hope. These greylags were certainly in tune with the change of season, happily mating in the cool, early morning sunshine.

Greylag geese mating

Greylag geese mating

Greylag geese mating

Lunchtime brought more signs of spring. I was taking a walk along one of the country lanes just outside Falmer. The trees are already in leaf, and the birds were singing.

country lane

Just off the path I spotted my second butterfly of the year (and managed my first photo). It’s a small tortoiseshell, and it seems an early showing.

Small tortoiseshell butterfly

As for the foxes (and badgers), they are still enjoying the garden at night, especially now the rains have more or less stopped (cue downpour in the next 24 hours). Here are the three foxes again, plus a couple of badger encounters.

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

Posted in Badger, Butterfly, Foxes, Landscape Also tagged , , , , , , |

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.

Posted in Badger, Behaviour, Bird of Prey, Foxes, mange Also tagged , , |

Pretty and Friend (trailcam foxes)

January 27, 2014 by Words | 2 Comments

The trail camera has been quietly clicking away for the past few days. I’ve not looked at it for the best part of a week and there were about 900 images on it when I finally brought it in this evening. Mainly foxes, mainly at night. This is a short sequence from Friday of Pretty with a much larger male fox (he featured briefly in photos last year as Nicked Ear).

two foxes

two foxes

two foxes

I’m not sure how accurate the temperature gauge is on the camera, but it looks as though it’s been dropping below 0°C at night.

This one is from nearly 3 days later, one of a handful of badger sightings that the camera has picked up over the past week.

badger

Pretty was around earlier this evening. Her foot is definitely much improved and she was using it almost all the time. In this photo the hind leg that’s nearest the camera is the one that was causing her problems. As you can see, it’s firmly planted on the ground.

Close-up of injured fox leg (near), now healed.

And a last shot of Pretty getting a small reward for her patience.

Close-up of fox

Camera note: colour stills taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens. trail camera images from the Bushnell Trophy Cam HD.

Posted in Badger, Foxes Also tagged |