Everything is Permuted

I was out in the fields at lunchtime today. It was quiet, and apart from a few house martins and one uncooperative jay I saw little that made me reach for the camera. Little that is, until I noticed something odd on one of the hawthorn bushes on the boundary between two areas of grazing.


I've not seen these before, but they were oddly beautiful in the cool light.




Brown tail moth caterpillar tent

From what I've been able to discover this evening, they are caterpillar tents. Probably of the brown-tail moth caterpillar. The tents provide protection over winter, but the caterpillars are also known to be highly irritant (they are the ones that cause a plague of rashes over the summer months) and protective clothing is necessary for any attempts to remove them.

I may try to get some better shots, but taking obvious care now I know what I'm looking at.

On a slightly different note, here's a shot of a rabbit seen early this morning. A classic pose!


Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 40D and EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens.

Just a few from today...
Early morning, rabbit

A squirrel outside my office

An emperor dragonfly, at lunchtime

The emperor from another angle

And from the early hours of Wednesday morning... a hedgehog

Camera note: all shots taken with the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens, except the hedgehog which was captured with the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG macro lens.

It's always a bit of a debate where to head for at the weekend. There's the coast with the fulmars and oystercatchers; or the valley with its wide array of birds; and the downs more generally with sheep and cattle. Today, we headed for the valley where the skylarks were abundant, singing loudly as they played out their distinctive vertical flight and hover. It's a great location for them (they like to nestle in the long grass) and if you can spot them on the wing (tiny dots high in the sky) and listen closely, you can time their descent by their song. Basically they run out of puff! Or that's how it appears to me. The singing gets stretched, weakens, and they then slowly descend back to earth. Listening closely allows you time to get near the landing spot.
Skylark on the wing

Skylark landing

Skylark preparing to take off again

There were many other birds around, including linnets, starlings, whitethroats and blackcaps, wheatears, and crows and magpies. The kestrels were about, but not near enough to worry the camera.

There were plenty of rabbits though. Most were in typical poses, sunning themselves and then running for cover... This is the way I like to see them.
Rabbit

Run rabbit... run

Unfortunately as well as the numerous young bunnies, there were a number of rabbit corpses around and evidence that we have another outbreak of myxomatosis. While most of the local population seemed unaffected, there were more than a few rabbits showing the distinctive and distressing signs of disease. I took some photos but I don't feel that I want to post them here. I'll make do with one of the more natural outcomes (and it's a more distant shot), since it's the first time I've seen a carrion crow actually demonstrating how it got its name.
Carrion crow with rabbit corpse

And if disease doesn't make life hard enough for the rabbits, there's always the risk of predators. This next series of shots was taken over a period of 9 seconds. We were in a quiet part of the valley when a male fox poked his head out of the thick undergrowth. He stared, and then turned slightly...
















And then he was gone... It was quick (very quick). Much quicker than when I came across a stoat doing much the same a year or so ago. The time from the the second to the final shot is just two seconds.

Camera note: all shots taken with the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens. I used a Manfrotto 685B Neotec monopod and 234RC tilt head for all of them, with the exception of the flight shot.