All the photos in this post will enlarge if you click on them. And you may need to, because otherwise you might just not see anything at all.
The day started out in the fields near work. I'd gone in search of deer, but they were being evasive. I started to take a few landscapes of the early morning light when, deep in the valley, I saw a… Well without the benefit of the lens I would barely have seen anything at all.
Small, distant and tucked away in the shadows, it was nonetheless unmistakeably a fox. I edged a little closer and if you were doubtful from that first image, this should confirm things. Like Stumpy, the garden fox, this one also seems to have a somewhat truncated brush ::right:
I returned to the same spot at lunchtime. Well you never know your luck, but of course the fox was nowhere to be seen. A few of the smaller birds were disappearing in and out of the hedgerow, and overhead a jay crossed the sky.
I got some nice close-ups of robins, but the main event once again played out on the far side of the valley. A lone buzzard came in low across the fields, attracting the attention of a pair of crows who proceeded to chase it away from their territory.
Until the buzzard emerges over the next field
And sweeps away across the open countryside
Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 40D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.
gdare
16 Oct 2009Battle for Britain :knight:
Well, sort of…. 😀
Flying Red Fox Blog
16 Oct 2009:yes: nice catch! Iam off to Worthing tomorrow to meet a friend from College i havent seen for ages, we are going to walk along the Pier, i will have my camera too!
SittingFox
16 Oct 2009Wow, goes to show yet again just how easy it is to walk within sight of a sleeping fox and not know it! On another level, I'm trying to get my head around the fact that Britain only has one buteo (the buzzard) after all my trials attempting to ID the prairie buteos for the past week :insane:
Ukwildlife
16 Oct 2009Poor old buzzards seem to bit getting mobbed everywhere!
Words
16 Oct 2009Adele, oh absolutely. I nearly didn't see this one at all. It was just something not quite right in the shadows, maybe a flash of white, that made me look again. I have enough trouble identifying our fairly basic selection of raptors. A whole variety within one genus would drive me insane.
Words
16 Oct 2009Darko, LOL! Something like that, but it was more like 'The Great Escape'.
Words
16 Oct 2009Neil, don't they just, though your one was certainly having the tougher time of it! Chased by a parakeet. How humiliating!!!!
Words
16 Oct 2009Mark, thanks. Hope you had a good day over in Worthing. The weather was quite nice this afternoon.
gdare
17 Oct 2009😆 😆