I've never seen a survey of the most popularly recognised wild birds in the UK, but I would be surprised if the top three didn't consist of robins, magpies and blackbirds. While the first two are regular visitors to my blog, blackbirds are rarely seen on here. The reason is simple: I encounter them on most walks, but they are usually scurrying about under hedgerows or thick bushes, throwing leaves about with the energy and noise of a flock of gulls, or just uttering their stutteringly frantic alarm call. They seem to have a great knack for seeking out terrible light conditions for the photographer but just occasionally they're a little more helpful.



This is an adult male. The female is brown and more obviously speckled, and supposedly there have been reports of the public mistaking a male-female pair of blackbirds for hybridising thrushes But thrushes are always much paler. The song thrush below didn't want to move away from its cloak of twigs but at least you can see the trademark arrow-spots on its belly



In the winter, blackbirds congregate in smallish flocks in the garden, apparently content to feed in harmony. But winter has melted into spring. Neighbours are suddenly hostile to each other - the battlelines are drawn





This fight was over in a few seconds without a clear winner. One blackbird hesitated on the path for a few seconds, panting, before flying back into the hedgerow.



Meanwhile, the collared doves watch the world nervously from the treetops



My local green woodpeckers do not seem to be about to make friends with rabbits (to anyone who doesn't have a clue what I'm talking about, please ask Words! ) but they do levitate



Apologies for the slight blur here but this is actually the first time, I believe, that I've caught a woodpecker just prior to its landing. It seems quite remarkable to me that they are able to travel horizontally for a short distance even after their wings have all but stopped beating.
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On a different topic, I saw a fox this morning for the time in several walks. Unfortunately, it was looking distinctly under the weather



When it turned about I saw that it was suffering from fairly severe mange.



Mange is not fatal in itself; deaths result from secondary skin infections and hypothermia. This fox is well away from my house and there is little option for treating it. Some foxes do seem to just live with mange, and I hope it manages to do so

The Fringe Vixen's mange treatment ceased after her four doses (although whether she did actually consume the early ones, we will never know). She is improving, but still scratching frequently. Probably habitual behaviour, maybe enhanced by the crustiness of her skin where the mange mites were prolific.

She does look beautiful - at least from the front:



Less so from the back. The blur of her head and shoulders in this picture is due to her movement as she scratches during a three second exposure. She was right at the back of the garden and a high shutter speed would have been useless.



We've had several false alarms over the past year or so with foxes showing possible symptoms of mange which then mysteriously vanish. The problem with mange ID are numerous. Foxes, like dogs (and people ) scratch for all kinds of reasons. In addition, the classic symptoms of mange (a hind leg limp and crusting on the face) don't, in my limited personal experience, occur until the disease is well advanced. Also, during the spring moult foxes really moult, not just drop a few hairs like the average dog. The amount of shed fur can be truly shocking.

Well, to a human, at least; last spring I found this little nest lined with fox fur Everything in nature, even dropped fur, is put to use!



But as far as mange goes, if you're suspicious that a local animal has caught it then it's best to discuss it with an accredited wildlife rescue organisation.

I saw the Fringe Vixen moseying about the garden this evening and hoped to get a photo of her bad side and write an intelligent post on the procession of her mange treatment.

Too bad - she was having none of that.



So here she is looking pretty as ever. In fact her condition does not look any worse than that visible in last Tuesday's video. Hopefully she did consume the cheeseball even on a full stomach.

If she comes back later I'll try to get a more informative shot...

EDIT, 19:15: She came back but is a thoroughly annoying mood from a photographer's perspective. I like taking fast moving shots of wildlife but our garden is so dark (a good thing, in most respects) that I really need sedate subjects after dusk. If I use the flash, all I get are the eyes.

So I decided to see if the stars were a friendlier subject for this evening. Astrophotography is a new field for me but I was quite pleased to get part of Taurus over the neighbouring street (shutter speed: 15 seconds! Trust me, it's dark out there!) Look at the airplane trails:



And here's the Pleiades (the blue cluster at the top) and Aldebaran - the Eye of the Bull - that is, the red star in the middle of the Hyades, down in the lower left.