{"id":2199,"date":"2012-02-25T23:02:46","date_gmt":"2012-02-25T23:02:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/2199"},"modified":"2013-11-06T21:19:52","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T21:19:52","slug":"unexpected-delights-of-gardening","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/unexpected-delights-of-gardening\/","title":{"rendered":"Unexpected Delights of Gardening"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Once again there was early morning mist, but it cleared to warm day with blue skies. Time to start tidying the garden for spring, but as ever I kept the camera handy as you can never be sure what might appear when you&#39;re not out looking for it.<\/p>\n<p>The herring gulls are always a good alarm system, and a couple of occasions their screeching caused me to look to the skies. I missed getting a shot of a fast stooping falcon (peregrine or hobby), but I did manage to catch a sparrowhawk running the gull gauntlet.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/sparrowhawk_gull_2502129049.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/sparrowhawk_gull_2502129060.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Clearing garden rubbish has one particular plus side (apart from a better looking garden), and that&#39;s taking the cuttings to the council tip (or as I sometimes think of it, to &#39;Kestrel County&#39;). And yes, as I approached the tip I spied a male kestrel sitting on one of the street lights at the side of the road.  <br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/kestrel_2502129084.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>It was looking for food, and several times dropped down from its perch to investigate the undergrowth.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/kestrel_2502129096.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/kestrel_2502129104.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>It finally caught something, though I suspect a worm is little more than a quick snack.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/kestrel_worm_2502129122.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Back home it was back to filling more sacks with rubbish. The sun was setting, and the street was beginning to darken into shade when a familiar figure appeared across the road in something of a hurry.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/fox_street_2502129138.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/fox_street_2502129143.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/fox_street_2502129145.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>Not bad for a day when I didn&#39;t go out looking for photos. And to close, two photos from late last night (actually early minutes of Saturday morning). I was out by the garden pond when I spotted this newt clambering up a ceramic planter.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/newt_2502129016.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>The second shot is another newt, coming up through the water for a gulp of air. <br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/newt_2502129020.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 \/><a title=\"site stats\" href=\"http:\/\/statcounter.com\/free-web-stats\/\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/c.statcounter.com\/7187219\/0\/2c644058\/1\/\" alt=\"site stats\" style=\"border:none;\" \/><\/a><br \/><i>Camera note: all daytime shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. The newts were photographed with the EF 100mm f\/2.8L macro IS USM lens. <\/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":[990,4,1026],"tags":[1128,68,1152,114,1154],"class_list":["post-2199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bird-of-prey","category-foxes","category-newt-amphibians-2","tag-fox","tag-gull","tag-kestrel","tag-newt","tag-sparrowhawk","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199","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=2199"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2199\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}