Archive of Images of the Day
A number of robin families raise chicks here each year. Here one is landing at one of the feeding sites.
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There are multiple families of tree sparrows and from this image it looks like an inter-family boundary fence argument is in progress.
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Tree Sparrows are nesting in a 'great-tit box' on the island to the main pond.
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The moorhens have a family at last. One parent is looking after 5 although 4 are visible in this image. There are probably 1 or 2 with the other parent.
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Getting more and more bold, here one of the Carrion Crow chicks is now exercising it's wings on the branch the nest is built on.
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First ever sighting of this very attractive Pebble Hook-Tip Moth.
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One of the carrion crow chicks chased after a parent bird as it left the nest. Both chicks are intermittently standing on the edge of the nest and excising their wings (22 May 2005).
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The two carrion crow chicks are growing fast (17 May 2005)
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Rabbits are a nuisance when they stop eating grass and start damaging tree bark, but the little ones are so sweet.
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The carrion crows are already feeding their young at 5 a.m. This one must have visited just after the camera memory card was changed in the hope some food had been left at the visit.
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The moorhen outside the kitchen window are still incubating. Meanwhile this bird at the other side of the plot may be one of the parents, another pair, or a loner. The Red/yellow boarder of the beak pattern is distinctive so we will try to work out which.
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First siting of a fox for a couple of months apart from just a tail a few days ago. This scruffy individual is out early (about 6 p.m.) so is probably a hard pressed parent disappointed that there is only corn at the feeding site this evening.
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The carrion crow chicks are now so big and vigorous that you can see them from the ground much closer than from the house. Strangely they respond to a single clap of hands and start begging. This is one of the 2 we have recently seen in the nest.
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A really unexpected one here - A jackdaw LEAVING its nestbox (up a disused telephone pole) carrying a dead house mouse. Too big for the youngsters? Mouse climbed the pole and was being removed? Why didn't the adult just eat it in the box if the youngster didn't want it? Never seen anything like this before. This is a composite of the first and last images.
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The Tree Sparrows are very active at the feeding site near the house. Here one on the ground is watching one in the air. We are seeing occasional visits to the nest box on the island - see archive image on 6 May 2005 for nest building two days earlier - hopefully swapping incubation duties. A few more days and we may see food being taken into the box
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Seeing less of the muntjac 'Bambi' during the day now, but it is still around. Note how the spots are fading.
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There are still 3 carrion Crow chicks. This image nicely shows the development of the wing feathers on one of the chicks.
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A number of mallard pairs have re-appeared presumably after failed nesting attempts. The 'boys' hang around the 'girls' while the girls feed up to make a new batch of eggs.
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We have seen quite a few dry leaves being carried back to the nest site. This bird photographed itself trudging back with another offering. (Although this image is a month old we got a similar one last night.)
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We don't often see a pair of Song Thrush feeding together. May be good or bad news for them.
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Oak galls form when an insect lays an egg under the bark. Some remains small and other swell up to wooden sphere 2cm in diameter.
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The Muntjac fawn is still 'loitering' on the plot and is much more tolerant of us than the adult (not that 20m isn't 'close enough'). The image from 10 days ago was taken at a boundary hedge. It walks through these dense hedges as if nothing was there. No wonder farmers use barbed wire and netting to keep in sheep.
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In the corner of a frame was this near vertical lift off by a magpie nicely catching the light in its tail. Point of interest: the white patch at the left is a marker for a Blackthorn branch we are doing as a sequence of bud to fruit images, if only it makes it.
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The Carrion Crows still have 3 ever more boisterous chicks.
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We now see only 2 carrion crow chicks. Here one of them shows up really well against the parent's dark feathers.
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Although we already have about 10 new tree sparrows, a pair have just started taking nesting material into a (notionally) great tit box on the island of the main pond.
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'Bambi' continues to appear all over the plot. This picture was taken at about 2 a.m.
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We have now seen three chicks (well beaks anyway) at the carrion crow nest. Here is a 'hatching' portrait.
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At least 2 Carrion crow eggs have hatched and the chicks are being fed by both parents. Here the parents beak is inside one of the chick's 'gape'. The orange patch on the right is a bit of agricultural twine they found somewhere - no countryside location is complete without it. The nest is 50m from the house (our excuse for the poor image quality!).
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Probably the entire family of tree sparrows picking up the corn.
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These three male mallard are going around as a group now that 'their girls' are probably all sitting on eggs.
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