{"id":1154,"date":"2008-06-09T23:06:28","date_gmt":"2008-06-09T22:06:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1154"},"modified":"2013-11-20T20:43:22","modified_gmt":"2013-11-20T20:43:22","slug":"a-difficult-decision","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/a-difficult-decision\/","title":{"rendered":"A difficult decision"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

After the weekend's photo frenzy I thought I could have expected a somewhat quieter day today. After all, it was back to work with a few minutes in the morning, and a shade under an hour at lunchtime. Just goes to show how wrong you can be. And that's left me with a dilemma. Which photo to post?<\/p>\n

I thought about this one of the chicks playing tug-of-war over a bone…<\/p>\n

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Or perhaps it was time for a portrait…<\/p>\n

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But then at lunchtime I was down at the dew pond, and the broad bodied chasers were excelling themselves. I thought about posting this shot…<\/p>\n

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But I also rather liked this one as well…<\/p>\n

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Then again, I nearly got the shot of the day back at home this evening. The nicked-ear vixen had wandered down to the front of the garden. The light was perfect, but the camera wasn't ready so I could only watch as she calmly stole a pair of gardening gloves that had been left near the house and hightailed off into a neighbouring garden with her prize. So not shot there (which at least reduces the choice a bit). <\/p>\n

So instead of a fox, and having decided against dragonflies or gulls, I'm going to post this photo as today's choice. It was taken down at the pond at lunchtime. I don't know who was more surprised… me or the…<\/p>\n

…stoat!!!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

That's my first ever shot of a stoat. It only popped its head out for a moment before turning back into the undergrowth but a beautiful moment.<\/p>\n

There are more of the gulls on page 2<\/a> of the Herring Gull Chicks album, and several more shots of the chasers in the Broad Bodied Chaser<\/a> album.<\/p>\n

Camera note: all today's photos were taken with the EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. I added the Kenko Teleplus 1.4x Pro 300 DG teleconverter for the gull shots.<\/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":[77,1023,989],"tags":[424,1148,428],"class_list":["post-1154","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dragonfly","category-stoat-wildlife","category-water-birds-birds-2","tag-chicks","tag-dragonfly","tag-stoat","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t