{"id":1547,"date":"2010-01-01T23:01:26","date_gmt":"2010-01-01T23:01:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1547"},"modified":"2013-11-12T00:38:00","modified_gmt":"2013-11-12T00:38:00","slug":"a-new-year-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/a-new-year-post\/","title":{"rendered":"A New Year Post"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

2009 ended in grey clouds. There is still an uncertain chill about the place, and the forecasts are at best mixed. The sky last night was mainly shrouded in mists, but occasionally the clouds moved away and the moon emerged with that familiar winter haze set around itself.
<\/span> Seeing out the old year<\/span><\/p>\n

Today was altogether brighter. The starlings were flocking in the garden this morning.
<\/span> Starlings flocking<\/span><\/p>\n

This afternoon I headed over to the Downs in search of kestrels, but almost the first creature I saw was too fast for the camera. It was a stoat, stepping out across a path between two low areas of undergrowth. I stayed put for about an hour, hoping it would return. It didn't, but a sighting of a stoat is always a treat. Less happily, I also saw a fox there. Sadly it had not survived long into the new year. Its body was hanging, tangled in the thorny undergrowth. There were no obvious serious wounds on it, and it looked as though it had made a fatal leap, possibly after a rabbit, become entangled and failed to free itself. \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

There were kestrels though. The main focus of my attention was a female which was out hunting voles, with some success. I saw her come to ground with prey on at least three occasions, though usually tucked behind a hedgerow. I did eventually catch up with her though \ud83d\ude09
<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/span> <\/p>\n

<\/span> <\/p>\n

The last shot of the afternoon was a stonechat, sitting proudly as the sun began to set.
<\/span> <\/p>\n

Here's hoping that the new year will prove a good year. No doubt there will be changes (there's an election here in March or May… my guess is May 6th). The global warming debate will hot up (I'm less certain the planet will, if I'm honest); and with luck the foxes will return to the garden (precious few sightings over the past couple of months, though they are around and I can hear them calling nightly at the moment).<\/p>\n

So very best to all for 2010!
\"Nature<\/a><\/span>
Camera note: the starlings and the moon were photographed with the Canon 40D and EF 200mm f\/2.8L II USM lens. I used the EF 400mm f\/5.6L USM lens for the kestrels and stonechat.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[990,980,1031],"tags":[1152,38,387,137],"class_list":["post-1547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-of-prey","category-birds-2","category-moon-landscape-2","tag-kestrel","tag-moon","tag-new-year","tag-stonechat","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1547","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\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1547\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}