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.

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)

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.

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.

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.

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