{"id":2213,"date":"2012-03-11T22:03:43","date_gmt":"2012-03-11T22:03:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/archives\/2213"},"modified":"2013-11-06T20:53:44","modified_gmt":"2013-11-06T20:53:44","slug":"spring-surprises-includes-red-kite","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/spring-surprises-includes-red-kite\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Surprises (includes Red Kite!!!)"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->It was a day of surprises. Spring is here (or no more than just around the corner), and the few frogs in the pond kindly obliged overnight by producing the first spawn of the year.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/spawn_1103121621.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/spawn_1103121640.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>The newts are also more active, exploring outside the pond though the temptation of a <a href=\"http:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/fox\/newtspawn\/album\/index.html\" target=\"_blank\">frog spawn feast<\/a> will no doubt have them scurrying back.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/newt_1103121636.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>There aren&#39;t many flowers in bloom yet, but the early hellebores were attracting lots of bees.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/bee_1103121657.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>The ladybirds were also abundant. This one is clinging to some bark mulch.<br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/ladybird_1103121666.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p>The biggest and best surprise was, however, something quite unexpected. I was cleaning out some leaves from the pond (carefully replacing the damselfly nymphs that cling to them), when the continual squawking of gulls suddenly changed into an eerie silence. I looked up. High, very high, in the sky an unfamiliar shape was circling over the garden. It was barely a dot to the naked eye, but with the help of a long lens the unmistakeable outline of a red kite came into view. Red kites are one of the great success stories of conservation. Their population had all but vanished, but through long term projects starting in Wales and the west of England, they have gradually re-populated much of the countryside. Sussex is on the very outer reaches of their re-established habitat and I&#39;ve only seen them locally on about three or four occasions. Seeing one over our garden was very special! <br \/><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/red_kite_1103121692.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/red_kite_1103121693.jpg' \/><\/span> <\/p>\n<p><span class='imgcenter'><img alt='' src='https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/red_kite_1103121727.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: red kite shots taken with the Canon 7D and EF 100-400mm f\/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. The macro shots were all taken 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":[1025,990,1047,991,1026],"tags":[1145,399,1147,114,433],"class_list":["post-2213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-amphibians-2","category-bird-of-prey","category-frog-spawn-amphibians-2","category-insects-2","category-newt-amphibians-2","tag-bee","tag-frog-spawn","tag-ladybird","tag-newt","tag-red-kite","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213","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=2213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.permuted.org.uk\/photography\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}