{"id":1213,"date":"2008-09-16T00:09:08","date_gmt":"2008-09-15T23:09:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1213"},"modified":"2013-11-19T19:19:41","modified_gmt":"2013-11-19T19:19:41","slug":"common-darters-a-jay-and-a-little-bit-of-fox","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/common-darters-a-jay-and-a-little-bit-of-fox\/","title":{"rendered":"Common Darters, a Jay and a Little Bit of Fox"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

I've been complaining all summer that the dragonflies are in somewhat short supply this year, and although I'd managed to photograph some broad-bodied chasers<\/a> earlier in the year, the common darter had been remarkable by its absence. But warm weather (much welcomed, if unexpected) has its uses, and today I found several darters flitting over the local dew pond. And as with yesterday's spiders, they were in something of a frisky mood.<\/p>\n

Common Darters<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Although the numbers were low (maybe half a dozen), they did occasionally come to rest on the fence around the pond. What I like about them is they are very persistent. If you approach slowly they may flit into the air, but if you wait a moment they almost invariably return to the same resting point. Hence you can slowly approach for some close-ups.<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Closer still<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Heading back to work, I spotted a bird flying overhead. I couldn't identify it on the wing other than to realize it wasn't one of the regulars. I grabbed a few quick shots (the rest are in the September Birds<\/a> album), and it was only when I processed them that I was able to identify it as a Jay, carrying what looks like an acorn.<\/p>\n

Jay<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

That's the first and second part of the title dealt with. Now for the tail…<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

That's the nicked-ear vixen disappearing under the fence. She's the only fox we get to see at the moment, and often that's the view she offers. She's unpredictable, and is as likely to depart in a hurry as to hang around. As it happens, this evening she relented and returned to the garden after a minute or so. <\/p>\n

The nicked-ear vixen<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Camera note: dragonfly flight shots and jay photographed with the EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens; the close-ups were with the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG macro lens; and the vixen posed in front of 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":[980,77,4],"tags":[33,1148,1128],"class_list":["post-1213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds-2","category-dragonfly","category-foxes","tag-birds","tag-dragonfly","tag-fox","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213","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=1213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}