Hit And Miss
The two photos show how difficult it is to photograph an Owl taking off without using an electronic beam to trigger off the shutter. Apparently there is a half second delay from the brain telling you to press the shutter and the actual flash going off. In that half second the Owl has flown about […]
The Last Comma
This photo shows a Comma Butterfly on some blackberries just after the sun had melted the first frosts of Autumn on the 25th It seems to have been a butterfly week with up to five Speckled Woods on Hopwood on several days and a Red Admiral in our garden. On Hopwood more Skylarks have been […]
At The Double
Not one but two Nuthatches fed in the garden together on the eighteenth – only the second ever visit to the garden in forty two years! It remains to be seen whether they re-appear tomorrow. On Hopwood on the seventeenth, in warm sunshine there were Skylarks calling as they flew South over the Golf Course. […]
After the Twelfth
This is one Red Grouse that has survived the glorious twelfth. The heather has been so purple this year that I couldn’t resist a trip to the Northern Dales this week to obtain a last clip of video before I start work scripting the new Pennine DVD. There were grouse everywhere and it was obvious […]
Young Adders Emerge
Whilst looking for Hobbies I came across this young Adder. It is about six weeks old and six inches long and I believe it can still give you a lethal bite despite its age. Apparently August is the month when young Adders emerge and they are on their own as soon as they are born. […]
Record Mistle Thrush Numbers
More time has been spent this week looking for Hobbies but all to no avail. I have now given up all hope of including one in this years Pennine DVD so we will have to settle for fourteen species of raptor on it and not fifteen! It was however pleasing whilst in Macclesfield forest to […]
Only A Merlin
On three good days this week I spent time in the Goyt Valley and on the Staffordshire moorlands looking for Hobbies. Only a female Merlin was seen, which in itself is always a good bird sighting but not what I was looking for! According to the bird press Kestrels are down in number by 53 […]
Almost There
With only its ear tufts to grow this young Long Eared Owl looks very much like an adult. By now it is well able to catch prey for itself and will soon be driven away from the nesting area and will have to look for a wood of its own. There will be many more […]
Record Breeding Season
Here is a photo of the young Greater Spotted Woodpecker that visits our garden on its own, now that it has been abandoned by the adults.During the week the Collared Dove record has gone up to twenty feeding together. What is it going to finish at? In a moorland plantation I heard my only young […]
Four Into One
This week I have had several sessions on the local Sand Martins and todays photo shows four young crammed into the entrance of their nesting hole. They have had an incredible breeding season with twenty five/thirty pairs fledging two broods each. It all adds up to more than two hundred young fledged from this one […]