{"id":1285,"date":"2009-01-10T00:01:43","date_gmt":"2009-01-10T00:01:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1285"},"modified":"2013-11-17T18:50:05","modified_gmt":"2013-11-17T18:50:05","slug":"some-familiar-faces-and-an-unusual-rabbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/some-familiar-faces-and-an-unusual-rabbit\/","title":{"rendered":"Some familiar faces and an unusual rabbit"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The winter light is so good that inevitably I gathered several more photos today. Regular visitors will recall the somewhat blurred shot of a lapwing from <a href=\"http:\/\/my.opera.com\/Words\/blog\/2009\/01\/06\/a-blast-from-siberia\" target=\"_blank\">Tuesday&#39;s<\/a> post. Well, I had another sighting today, in more or less the same spot. This time though I was able to track it as it flew overhead and although far from the best b-i-f (bird in flight) I&#39;ve managed, at least it&#39;s in focus this time.<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/lapwing_0901098683.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img SRC=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/lapwing_0901098683.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Lapwing<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>There were plenty of the more common local birds in the vicinity, including this crow which flew past while I was surveying the fields from an excellent raised vantage point. <br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/crow_0901098695.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img SRC=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/crow_0901098695.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Crow<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>And I can hardly ignore the robins, which seem to be falling over themselves to get in front of the camera at the moment. This one seemed quite intent on being noticed.<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/robin_0901098707.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img SRC=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/robin_0901098707.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Robin<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The final shot tonight is more of a reference photo. I was unable to get anywhere near the subject, but spotted it in the distance and took a few frames as I tried (unsuccessfully) to get within proper range of the lens. Nothing particularly unusual about the species. It&#39;s a rabbit, and we have countless rabbits around here. What made this one special though was the colour. It&#39;s a black (melanistic) variant, the first such one I&#39;ve seen in the wild. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Melanism\" target=\"_blank\">Melanism<\/a>, is a pigmentation variant caused by an excess of melanin (logical) and is occasionally seen in foxes, squirrels, rabbits (evidently), and cats (among other mammals). The photo is heavily cropped.<br \/><a href=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/black_rabbit_0901098720_crop.jpg\" target=\"_blank\"><img SRC=\"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2009\/01\/black_rabbit_0901098720_crop.jpg\" width=\"600\" height=\"400\" \/><span class=\"aligncenter\">Black (melanistic) rabbit<\/span><\/a><br \/><span class=\"aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/natureblognetwork.com\/button.php?u=Words\" width=\"0\" height=\"0\" alt=\"Nature Blog Network\" border=\"0\" \/><\/a><\/span><br \/><i>Camera note: all shots taken with the EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L USM IS 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":[980,8,989],"tags":[503,44,500,78],"class_list":["post-1285","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds-2","category-rabbit","category-water-birds-birds-2","tag-black-rabbit","tag-crow","tag-lapwing","tag-robin","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285","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=1285"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1285\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1285"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1285"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1285"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}