Category Archives: Wildlife

RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch 2015

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On Saturday January 24th I settled on a stool at the kitchen window and counted our garden visitors for an hour for the RSPB Big Garden Birdwatch. We have been getting quite a range of birds visiting and thankfully the majority decided to turn up for breakfast while I was counting…

Blue tit – 3
Great tit – 1
Coal tit – 1
Long-tailed tit – 1
Robin – 2
Starling – 1
Dunnock – 1
Goldfinch – 2
Collared Dove – 1
Pied Wagtail – 1
Blackbird – 2

We normally get Woodpigeon’s, a Magpie and a Jay who visit too.

I took the below images of our feathered friends through the kitchen window so not to disturb them.

Autumn 2014

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Robin at Waters' Edge Country Park, LincolnshireSo Autumn is now over and we have moved into Winter. Its been so mild this year that it’s really only just started to feel like Winter!

Taking images for Autumn has had its challenges. The main one being dark evenings! Not being able to go out after work and take photographs has really reduced the time I have for shooting. The added bonus was, I had a week away in Lincolnshire that enabled me to take a few images that I wouldn’t have normally taken. This has led me to the decision that I need to take some annual leave in each season this year!

Again I had my list of ‘finds’ and I didn’t do too badly this time, but that might be because I based some of them around the area I was visiting!

The key Autumn image for me was the Grey Seal pups. I have never seen them in the wild until last years visit to Donna Nook – I will put another post on it with more detail/photos soon. I had also never seen a Fly Agaric either until this year, so I did make some great discoveries!

What I missed photographing was the changing colour of the leaves…I know, the most basic Autumn image! I just seemed to miss the best times to go out and shoot, so it will be at the top of the list for this year!

Summer 2014

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For each of my seasonal blog posts I have a list of ‘images I’d like to take’. Some of them get a tick next to them and some I just don’t find! Summer has been a season of not finding what I have been looking for (maybe a Field Mouse and Skylark were a little bit of a dream find). Not being out and about as much as I would have liked due other commitments has definitely reduced my chances of finding the more easily found animals.

I have however got the bases of my list for next Summer! I now know where to find the Flower Meadow and Lavender fields and I’m sure there are mice in my friend’s field as the cat managed to find one – shame I can’t ask her to show me where she caught it!

Next week is my first week off from the day job this year so I’m going to start taking Autumn images early!

Squirrel hunting with my camera

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Last month I had a traffic accident. As I came up over the brow of the hill, I saw a squirrel in the middle of the road. I braked and swerved the opposite way to him but he ran at me and under the side of my car. There was nothing else I could do, I felt a bump. I couldn’t just leave him there so got out to see and he had passed away immediately. I got some branches, picked him up and placed him in an indent in the grass at the edge of the road and covered him over.

I couldn’t stop thinking about the poor little squirrel all day, especially that night when he should have been curled up in his drey.

I couldn’t make it up to that squirrel but I wanted to do something so got some squirrel food and headed out to the local park to provide some of the local squirrels with breakfast!

Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust Slimbridge – May 2014

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Even though Slimbridge Wetland Trust is only an hour away from me, I hadn’t visited it since a school trip when I was about 7! Luckily, it was a lovely sunny day when I visited again in May.

After a walk around World Wetlands, lunch was in Hawaiian Goose or Neneorder so I headed over to Riverlife and the picnic benches. A pair of Nene Geese came over to say hello, so I opened the bird food that I had bought on the way in, which they happily ate from my hand. They left for a while and then came back with their young to get their lunch. The young were so gentle when pecking the food from my hand, not like their parents who were a little harsh in comparison!

A walk up to the Kingfisher hide was next on the agenda. The hide was full of people, there were Kingfishers flying up stream and coming back to their nest with food. Again my lack of a long enough lens was a bit of a problem, they were just a little too far away!

I didn’t quite make it all the way around the site – there is just so much to see so I am looking forward to another visit later in the year! 🙂

Spring 2014

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Mute Swan and Cygnets, Whelford Pools Nature ReserveBack in the New Year I decided that a blog about the seasons would be a nice addition to the website. It would also be a good reason to venture out in the evenings and take notice of our ever changing surroundings.

Deciding what to photograph over Spring was the easy part, finding the locations of the wildlife itself was more difficult but also very rewarding to find them in their natural habitats.

Rabbit KitsLooking for specific habitats has led to a few discoveries that I didn’t know about. The river canal that wasn’t filled with water or boats but had lots of rabbits and their kits nearby. The walk to Uffington White Horse turned out to be an occasion to watch Red Kites souring over the hills hunting down dinner! And the Nature Reserve 10 miles down the road that has hides to watch a wide variety of birds including Herons and Cormorants.

One discovery I didn’t like however is that my poor old lens just isn’t cut out for wildlife that is more than 10 metres away. Looks like I’ll be investing in a new one!

Summer has now begun and I’m looking forward to what new things I’ll discover!