{"id":1960,"date":"2011-06-13T23:06:49","date_gmt":"2011-06-13T22:06:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1960"},"modified":"2013-11-09T14:41:54","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T14:41:54","slug":"woods-mill-sussex-kestrel-chicks-and-other-creatures","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/woods-mill-sussex-kestrel-chicks-and-other-creatures\/","title":{"rendered":"Woods Mill, Sussex – Kestrel chicks and other creatures"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

I had time to get over to Woods Mill nature reserve today. It's the headquarters of the Sussex Wildlife Trust<\/a> and is where I got a series of shots of kestrel chicks<\/a> a couple of years ago. A report of the SWT site told me it was time for a return visit.<\/p>\n

It didn't take long for an adult kestrel to appear and deposit a vole (?) for the hungry young mouths.
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Feeding over, I moved around the edge of the field for a different view.
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The red cables you can see just inside the nest box are part of a webcam the Trust has installed. Some excellent video of the young kestrels<\/a> from inside the box can be seen on their blog.<\/p>\n

I stuck around the area of the nest for about an hour, but it seems the adults were taking a relaxed view of feeding, and there was little further activity to see. So I headed around to the lake, where a heron was lurking in the reeds.
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There were plenty of small birds about, including whitethroats and fledgling tits (blue and great).
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I also added a meadow brown butterfly to this year's sightings.
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And there were clouds of damselflies… and lots of mating activity.
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My favourite though was a lone beautiful demoiselle damselfly (female), perched on a leaf fairly late in the day.
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Considering that I left the house in thick fog, it turned out to be a fine afternoon!
\"Nature<\/a><\/span>
Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens, except the demoiselles which were taken with the EF 100mm f\/2.8L macro 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":[990,992,309,989],"tags":[627,45,1170,57,1179,1152,568,426],"class_list":["post-1960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-of-prey","category-butterfly-insects-2","category-damselfly","category-water-birds-birds-2","tag-beautiful-demoiselle","tag-blue-tit","tag-damselfly","tag-great-tit","tag-heron","tag-kestrel","tag-whitethroat","tag-woods-mill","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