Everything is Permuted

Today was as good as it gets. The morning sun was bright and I headed out early enough to go for a short walk before work. The birds were up, and a flash of brilliant colour caught my eye.

A yellowhammer looking splendid in the sunshine

That's always a nice way to start a working day, but things were to improve. I'd walked a short way along a path and taken a couple of poor shots of horses (against the sun) when some movement caught my eye. A lone fox was out in the field. Now I know they are around here, but I have had virtually no sightings of them before, so this was special. It's the first time I've photographed a fox in a field

Lone fox

Several shots later I headed back to the car, when a successful few minutes suddenly got even better. A second fox appeared, heading down into the field just along from where I was parked.



I took a number of shots as he descended into the valley, and then watched as he caught a rabbit...



And tossed it in the air....



And ...erm... dismantled it



Finally he carried it away, startling a second rabbit near the edge of the field.



There are more of the sequence in my One Spring Day album. And the reason for an album is that after that unbelievably good start to the day, my lunchtime walked came close to matching it.

First there were the buzzards (two were circling overhead).



And this ram appeared perfectly framed in a gate.



I saw a kestrel and some more rabbits, set off in some wonderful countryside views.



As I got back to my starting point I looked out to see if there were any foxes about. There weren't; but a pair of long-tailed tits were busy gathering nesting material. As ever, they like to work behind a tapestry of twigs...



But as I said, it was a good day and this one did me the honour of emerging from the thicket while it continued to gather material.



Last night I mentioned that I would do an update on the spawn... that's been delayed, but there is one photo I posted last night in my 365 collection which shows just how well they are coming along. They are still 'massed' together but I expect them to be swimming freely in the next few days.

The garden fox was back last night (I'm struggling to keep up with the footage). I'll start sitting out again with real camera soon, but he has a tendency to keep to the small hours (often showing up at around 1am, and then again around 4am). And as for tomorrow.. if it's bright, I'll be back by that field

Camera note: all shots taken with the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.