{"id":1962,"date":"2011-06-16T00:06:19","date_gmt":"2011-06-15T23:06:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/1962"},"modified":"2013-11-09T14:37:53","modified_gmt":"2013-11-09T14:37:53","slug":"more-falmer-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/more-falmer-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"More Falmer Birds"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Mixed weather again today&#8230; not too bad a start, but it rained at lunchtime and tonight&#39;s promised lunar eclipse was a complete non-event here due to a layer of fog that&#39;s hung over us for most of the evening. That&#39;s not to say that I didn&#39;t make the best of what weather we had.<\/p>\n<p>It started early this morning over by Falmer Pond. The churchyard is often lively at that time of day, and that&#39;s where I photographed this fine looking blackbird.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/blackbird_1506117955.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>There was however a much more bizarre encounter with three of the drakes (two mallards and a hybrid). I&#39;ve no idea if the target was a younger bird (or just unlucky), but two of the ducks launched a frenzied assault on the third. Despite attempts to escape&#8230;<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/duck_1506117980.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/duck_1506117983.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>And despite attempts to hide&#8230;<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/duck_1506117991.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>&#8230; they eventually cornered their victim down and proceeded to put the term &#39;pecking order&#39; to the very literal test. This kind of behaviour is far from unknown among ducks but it&#39;s the first time I&#39;ve witnessed it. The victim did eventually manage to get free and make a somewhat disoriented escape, while the perpetrators wandered off in the other direction as though nothing had happened. <br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/duck_1506118013.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Witnessing that made me realize that these little things won&#39;t stay cute forever! But for the moment they are cuteness plus some!<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/ducklings_1506118071.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Not quite as young as the ducklings (which are I think the fourth or fifth brood on the pond this year), the young moorhens are turning into fine looking, and highly photogenic, juveniles.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/moorhen_juvenile_1506118036.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>The heron was demonstrating how it defies gravity&#8230;<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/heron_1506118088.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/heron_1506118090.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>And for me, the spot of the day was a fleeting moment when a green woodpecker flew over the pond. I had time for two frames (literally), and they were more or less in focus (a big bonus!).<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/gwp_1506118073.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/gwp_1506118074.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Lastly, I can&#39;t go without one shot of the young herring gulls. Given that it&#39;s now past midnight I think this might be the best shot to close with!<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/06\/gull_chick_1506118110.jpg' \/><\/span> <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 Canon 7D and 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":[980,989],"tags":[51,1160,1176,222,737,1172],"class_list":["post-1962","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-birds-2","category-water-birds-birds-2","tag-blackbird","tag-duck","tag-duckling","tag-green-woodpecker","tag-herring-gull-chick","tag-moorhen","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962","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=1962"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1962\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1962"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1962"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1962"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}