Everything is Permuted

The signs of autumn are present in the air. There's a distinct chill to the wind, and a hint of rain is in the air. The fields have been harvested, and sheep line the hillsides.




I watched as a glider wafted over in the distance.


Towards the end of the walk, I stopped to watch the few house martins darting across the sky. It was then that I came across one of the most common, but infrequently seen, of our mammals. The common shrew is small, and usually hides in long grass or thick undergrowth. The local kestrels are among their predators, as are owls and foxes. Apart from the difficulty in seeing them, their main defence are glands that (so I'm told) give them a foul taste. I'm not sure what this one had fallen prey to. It was laying on short grass, possibly dropped by a kestrel (though I didn't see any in the area), or possibly a cat (some do lurk at the edge of the farmland). It was fresh, and had obviously not been there for long. The flies appeared while I was photographing its tiny corpse.
Common shrew



Meanwhile, although they evaded the camera, the foxes were busy in the garden on Sunday night. I'm unsure which two these are, but htey provided about 15 minutes of action on the trail cam. Here are a couple of minutes of them.




Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 400D. The landscapes were shot with the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens. I used the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG macro lens for the shrew.