{"id":1053,"date":"2008-01-24T23:01:57","date_gmt":"2008-01-24T23:01:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1053"},"modified":"2013-11-23T00:39:25","modified_gmt":"2013-11-23T00:39:25","slug":"a-couple-of-garden-mammals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/a-couple-of-garden-mammals\/","title":{"rendered":"A couple of garden mammals"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->We&#39;ve had a welcome return of relatively dry weather. It&#39;s still unseasonably mild, and the forecast is set fair for the weekend. <\/p>\n<p>I didn&#39;t get much of an opportunity to get outside during the day, but the skies were wonderfully clear this evening and presented a perfect opportunity for photographing the moon which is just beginning to wane.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/my.opera.com\/Words\/albums\/showpic.dml?album=52745&amp;picture=6364616\" target=\"_blank\"><img SRC=\"http:\/\/files.myopera.com\/Words\/albums\/52745\/moon_2401082690.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The moonlight also brought out the wood mice. They&#39;ve not been too evident lately, but this evening two of them appeared, separately and on different feeders. They were enjoying the dry weather, and helping themselves royally to the snacks on offer.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/my.opera.com\/Words\/albums\/showpic.dml?album=373655&amp;picture=6364619\" target=\"_blank\"><img SRC=\"http:\/\/files.myopera.com\/Words\/albums\/373655\/woodmouse_2401082664.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">The early evening mouse<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/my.opera.com\/Words\/albums\/showpic.dml?album=373655&amp;picture=6364627\" target=\"_blank\"><img SRC=\"http:\/\/files.myopera.com\/Words\/albums\/373655\/woodmouse_2401082676.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">The late evening mouse<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>So two mice in one night. But that&#39;s not the reason for the blog title. When I said a couple of garden mammals, I was referring to species not individuals. And the second mammal is of course a fox. Over the past week or so, we&#39;ve heard plenty of screaming, and caught brief glimpses of the foxes in the garden, or across the street. On Tuesday night there were two in the garden. One paused momentarily to stare at me peering out through the window before diving under the fence. The other (which had been well hidden up until then) followed at high speed from the shrubs on the south side of the garden. No photos though. <\/p>\n<p>I had more luck tonight. Now this may be because the dry weather kept me outside for longer, what with the moon and the mice (plus the newts), but whatever the reason the &#39;nicked-ear&#39; vixen paid what, for her, was an extensive visit. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/my.opera.com\/Words\/albums\/showpic.dml?album=445010&amp;picture=6364656\" target=\"_blank\"><img SRC=\"http:\/\/files.myopera.com\/Words\/albums\/445010\/fox_shy_vixen_2401082695.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Arrival at the far end of the garden<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/my.opera.com\/Words\/albums\/showpic.dml?album=445010&amp;picture=6364657\" target=\"_blank\"><img SRC=\"http:\/\/files.myopera.com\/Words\/albums\/445010\/fox_shy_vixen_2401082703.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">4 minutes later, by the pond<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>As well as the small nick in her left ear, she&#39;s got a second distinguishing mark. If you look closely at her right rear leg you can see a white spot (possibly the result of a wound). Her four minute stay in the garden is probably the longest she&#39;s tolerated me. I kept firmly to one spot in the garden, and didn&#39;t attempt to approach her, wanting to see how she would respond. She steered a very wide circle around me to get to the pond, but she did stay in the garden. Just after that second photo she jumped down and disappeared out through to the front.<\/p>\n<p><i>Camera note: Moon photographed with the EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens + Kenko 1.4x Pro 300 DG teleconverter; all other shots taken with the EF 24-105 F4L IS USM lens.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,1031,54],"tags":[1128,38,326],"class_list":["post-1053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-foxes","category-moon-landscape-2","category-mouse","tag-fox","tag-moon","tag-wood-mouse","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1053"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1053\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}