The sun is beating down, the crickets are chirping in the meadows, and the humidity is fairly fierce. It does not seem to be weather that would encourage activity, yet swifts wheel and dive high overhead, and even back on terra firma, some creatures rebel against the sensibility of resting in the shade





In early evening, foxes can be found in meadows, typically not doing too much



Though occasionally showing a bit more life.



But mammal sightings are peaking sharply after dark at the moment. Unfortunately, the night that a beautiful sow (female) badger decided to pose in plain view front of the car was one where I didn't have the camcorder with me but even so, I've got a fair amount of footage in the headlights over the past few days.

This clip starts with something I see very rarely - a roe deer fawn young enough to still have a few spots! If you look carefully, you can see some fox eyeshine in the background about 41 seconds into the footage I've also included some recent footage of a wild cub out and about in the local area

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One other picture today - this frog surprised me on a local footpath. It was impressively well camouflaged



(And one other thing, if I am allowed a gripe, it would be nice to upload pictures on Opera without a Proxy Error just once in a while. I don't mind the occasional error / downtime but this has been going on for weeks now! Please sort it out!)

April is always the month of mammals, but those lengthening evenings when the light is fine and the blackbirds are singing occasionally offer glimpses beyond all expectations.

The Survivor Vixen is more tolerant of me than she has ever been; perhaps she has finally forgotten the mange-capture episode



Foxes dot the meadows, mostly in relaxed poses, although I heard two episodes of screeching during my walk tonight. Out of sight, but not out of mind: who the protagonists are isn't easy to say.

Roe deer have a more serene existence, at least at this time of year.



I left this doe to rest and continued up the lane, not anticipating any further deer sightings. But glancing across the farthest meadow where I often see foxes, and occasionally badgers, I noticed a dark form tiptoeing forth from the shadows. The sun continued to sink towards the horizon but there are some encounters that one does not simply walk away from.



She is pregnant, it would appear. Roe deer are the only ungulates to use delayed implantation - put simply, the fawn does not start to develop immediately. Their total gestation period is, incredibly, almost 300 days, and she will not give birth for a few more weeks. But even now, she is not alone. Last year's fawn accompanied her





Their coats are rough with the spring moult.



She grazed peacefully, but the yearling wanted to caper, bounding with unfocussed and seemingly joyous energy, leaping into the air at intervals far too spontaneous to freeze on camera in the gathering dusk. So for once I make no apology about putting a blurred picture on here. I will not blame falling light levels or the difficulties of handholding a 500mm lens.

I blame the fawn's exuberance

A surprise in the garden - and not to do with the foxes for once

I glanced outside yesterday and saw what I initially presumed to be an unusually large flock of woodpigeons devouring the finch food. Apart from considering how expensive they might be to feed, I didn't think much of it, until later in the day I got the camera on one of the "pigeons" and was very startled to see a stock dove Columba oenas staring back at me!

One came again this morning, and I was able to snatch a very poor picture!



Well, this is a nice surprise New bird for the garden list and, indeed, for my personal area list. I've never seen this shy rural bird at all outside of the vast agricultural plains of East Anglia. It looks slightly more elegant than its bulky woodpigeon cousin, and is much smaller, but its markings are the best ID. Woodpigeons Columba palumbus...



...have white blotches on their wings, a white blaze on their necks (when adult) and yellowish eyes. Stock doves have black eyes, black wingtips, and no white anywhere. The feral pigeons which overwhelm city centers are descended from the domesticated form of the rock dove Columba livia which is now extremely localised as a wild bird in the UK. There's a handful of feral pigeons in the nearest town but I never have them visit the garden.

Collared doves are the only other member of the family to pay us a visit (I do look out for turtle doves but I'm yet to find one), and easily distinguished!



One thing all these birds have in common is a "cere", a fleshy area around the base of their beaks, which isn't that common amongst birds in general. Some raptors also have it.
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Woodpigeons might the largest bird to regularly land in the garden (very occasionally a pheasant shows up) but roe deer are largest wild mammal that I see on a regular basis; fallow deer are around, but they're not easy to find. Early this morning, when the grass was still frosty and woodpeckers were drumming in the treetops, I found two does and a fine-looking buck grazing near the horses.



If you look closely you can see that the buck's antlers are in velvet.



They're still in their greyish winter coats, but they will moult soon. Frost or no frost, winter is clearly ending - if indeed it ever properly started!



Finally, these horses They've appeared on my blog on a few occasions over the last couple of years but I've never known very much about them, other than that they're quite benign with the wild visitors to their meadow. Last week I had a chat with the ladies who care for them and had another surprise - the one with the white blaze on his muzzle is 33 years old! The brown one is about 30. They're doing well!