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Posts tagged with "magpie"

Guests in the Oak Tree

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The wind's roaring like the sea. It's autumn, all of a sudden, with chestnuts appearing in the wood and leaves bleaching from green to orange. It's too easy to take trees for granted when you live in southern England, but after a few months in the prairies you come to believe it quite fanciful that woody vegetation can ever be vastly taller than a human being.

I have a youngish oak tree outside my window, and due to the positioning of my mobile home on a slope, I'm seeing it half way up, rather than from ground-height. Effectively, my bird feeders are positioned high in its branches, and that's the primary reason why they have attracted such a variety of visitors in a short space of time, from bullfinches to chiffchaffs. And, of course, the British answer to the chickadee, which is gradually becoming more cooperative smile





...most of the time wink



I've seen more marsh tits in the last week than I have in the rest of my life - in fact there's another one outside the window as I type this right They are remarkably talkative little birds, and cannot seem to fly anywhere without making small, thin calls.

Other guests are not going unnoticed knight



Squirrels are making their presence known, and they're making it a family trip. This young one looked a bit big for nursing, but the mother tolerated it - briefly. Then she returned to the oak tree, her youngster following her like a dog on a leash.



Another youngster has proven unexpectedly bold. The bare patches on this magpie's head are probably due to moulting.



It will be interesting to see how the guest list changes as winter develops. I'm not far from Dungeness National Nature Reserve, which can attract some real rarities.

Heat Haze

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It may not be the Sahara, but wildlife does not care for comparisons. It's hot faint



Yet life has to continue. Squirrels are busy; the first fruits and nuts are developing on the trees and there are rivals to bark at and balconies to explore right



In truth it's a bit too warm for ideal wildlife watching. Having seen little on my walk yesterday, I crept outside about an hour after dawn this morning, in search of a different world. Morning mist lingered, waiting to be scattered by the sun.



Khamsin found a new friend smile



He was very determined to follow us, trotting along on his side of the fence, but there's not really space for him in the garden, so he had to say farewell sad



The hills, meanwhile, were reduced only to suggestions in the haze.



This is, firstly, the county of trees; we don't have the sprawling wild forests of Canada, but Surrey is the most treed county in the UK, and in late summer the land is very green with them. The woods are overwhelmingly deciduous.



And in those trees shriek those flying emeralds that no longer seem so strange when the temperature is so high.



Almost a Mountain

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Well, not quite. It's 96 metres (315 ft), which is still remarkably high in a peninsula that is barely above sea level.



It is, unmistakably, Norwich Cathedral, the most spectacular interruption to breach the vast Norfolk horizon.





Footsteps have fallen and voices raised within these walls for the last 900 years.





Older voices are remembered.



Outside, the ancient gateway stands strong.



It is home to monsters...



...and their foes right



Another gateway opens onto a building so crooked it could almost have been built in Saskatchewan whistle


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Back on my side of town, there hasn't been too much to report. The weather has been fickle and it's difficult to fit in long walks between university work, and also between dawn and dusk, which are now almost at their closest; sunset today was 3:47pm. Winter is upon us smurf

But here are a few photos that I've gathered recently and haven't been able to fit into other posts.

Magpies at dawn



The hiding heron



Winter valley



And the collared dove...no, it wasn't eating pilchards scared I bought the fish for Khamsin, who declined, so I put them outside in front of the trailcam, hoping to catch the local fox. Instead, I caught a cat cat and this little dove.

For a Secret Never to be Told

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bigeyes x 7

A number of lessons have been learned today: 1) there is no maximum limit to the absurdness of foxes, 2) Norfolk magpies hunt in packs and 3) messing with Shetland ponies is not a wise career move scared

Well, I suppose it had to happen eventually. I don't recall seeing any foxes at all in East Anglia during my undergraduate degree, save the occasional individual in the Broads National Park, and now I've seen two in less than a month. I ventured out with Khamsin into the Yare Valley early this morning, this bitingly-cold October morning with mist curling from the rivers...



...and all the vegetation heavily stiffened with frost.



The sun was barely rising, and the moon had yet to set.





But a little fox was waiting, a youngster from this year, a young male I think, although it was hard to be certain.



And he wasn't alone right yikes



Magpie and fox - so many times I've seen them pester each other in Surrey, but this was the most determined of entourages. They followed their victim across the field.



They spied on his conversations confused



They watched him learn that the temper of Shetland ponies is as short as their legs.





And they traipsed after him into the stable, which is not, I confess, a habitat in which I've photographed foxes before.





By this stage my hands were so cold that I was struggling to operate the camera, but I watched in considerable bemusement as the magpie rhyme nearly ran short.



Still they gathered, like mischievious children around a storyteller right



But I think all celebrities need a break from public attention sometimes.

The Ears in the Grass

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It's hot...bewilderingly hot for April knockout The local weather station logged 26c (almost 80f) today bigeyes



And you can no more keep foxes out of a sunny field than you can keep cats off a comfy sofa, so I went out looking for them this evening sherlock And I saw a rufous shape disappearing into the hedgerow even sooner than I expected!



She looked so small in the lane that I initially thought that she must be a wandering kit. But I looked out into the field where she was headed, and saw that she was a lactating vixen. And she was hunting, or trying to, pointing her muzzle like an arrow into the grass.



She didn't really want company...



...so I backed off, and she settled down smile



...becoming little more than an orange spot in the grass ninja



I left her to her evening. But I hadn't gone very far before I saw one more orange splash in the landscape! bigsmile



At least, that is what I thought until I realised that it had four ears rather than two! bigeyes



They were stretched out in the sun together, as foxes sometimes do. Unlike wolves, jackals and coyotes, foxes do not hunt in groups, but they're quite happy to rest and play together. I even caught a glimpse of a third fox over by the hedgerow, my fourth on a short walk! yes

The larger of the two resting foxes eventually rose to his feet and explored the hedge.



But he was easier on the camera than Fox #5, who was meandering around a much bigger field. I thought I should post this photo anyway, though, simply because it has a magpie in it. Over the past few years, I've witnessed fox-magpie encounters that vary from friendship to outright war. I don't think that either the fox or I can guess what this mapgie is planning scared

May 2013
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