Skip navigation.

Everything is Permuted

Tales of a South Downs fox... and other ramblings

Posts tagged with "squirrel"

A Grey Day

Friday, 13. November 2009, 00:31:36

Grey squirrel, that is.





Nature Blog Network
Camera note: all shots taken with the Canon 40D and EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.

10 comments

A natural acrobat (and a flock of kestrels)

Thursday, 27. August 2009, 21:50:33

, ,

One of the less familiar faces in the garden is the squirrel. I do see them every now and then, but usually they are skittish and sightings are brief. Also they tend to 'hang out' on the bird feeder which is usually in deep shade. Today, however, one particularly greedy specimen decided that a peanut was indeed equal to the price of a photograph.

squirrel

squirrel

squirrel

This afternoon brought a different kind of surprise. We'd headed out to one of the local walks (Castle Hill), an area of scientific interest. It's renowned for butterflies and wild flowers. I've been there before, but as we entered one of the valleys I looked up to the brow of the Downs and to my amazement a string of kestrels were out hunting. There were at least six or seven in the air, a veritable flock. I'm used to seeing two or three together, but have never seen quite such a gathering. I presume there were young kestrels among the adults. Plus, it turns out when I checked back on the photos, one was actually a sparrowhawk Homer: Doh!

It was impossible to get close (believe me I tried) as part of the area is fenced off for conservation, but I was able to get several group shots and some long distance hunting activity.
Three kestrels

Hovering kestrel

Gliding kestrel

I will definitely have to head back there again when I get the chance, and try to find a route that takes me to the top of the valley for a better vantage point.

The other sighting of interest was as we were heading back. I noticed some pigeons take off from a field, but my attention fixed on the birds that stayed put and 'ran' deeper into cover. I'm fairly sure these are red-legged partridges. These are an introduced species but now moderately common in the south east (though not that easy to spot!)
Red-legged partridge

As for the foxes, well there were three in the garden last night at various times. Bold (of course) plus Stumpy and a brief visit by the cub. Short clips below.


Nature Blog Network
Camera note: the squirrels were photographed with a new lens, the EF 200mm f/2.8L II USM. Not only one of the lowest priced L lenses (relatively speaking), but razor sharp even when wide open. The kestrels birds were all photographed with the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM lens.

9 comments

I was going to post...

Saturday, 8. August 2009, 00:17:25

, , , ...

Well the best laid plans etc... I was going to post about these...
Ants and larvae

And I thought about posting about this...
Young squirrel in the garden

And tonight I got several photos of this...
Moth

I even had a close encounter with the vixen...
Vixen

But in the end all of those previous shots, for me, can't match up to this little sequence. She appeared from the back of the garden, and despite being aware of me paused by the water bowls and grazed briefly on the sultanas. It's easily the most exciting encounter with a badger to date. She was, to my amazement, really quite calm given that I was standing about 15 or so feet away. Some of the shots are cropped, but the first one is a full frame image to give an idea of proximity.
Badger





And her departure...


She seems to have a bit of a limp on the right rear leg. I'll check the trail cam footage tomorrow, but it was obvious on the video captured last night. To be truthful, I didn't notice it too much tonight. I was too intent on not moving or breathing, and hoping I could control the camera!


Nature Blog Network
Camera note: all tonight's shots were taken with the Sigma 105mm F2.8 EX DG macro lens, with the exception of the young squirrel which was caught with the EF 400mm f/5.6L USM.

10 comments

Mortality

Monday, 29. June 2009, 23:50:52

, , , ...

Most days watching nature is a wonderful affirmation of life, but today brought out the other side of the coin. These first two shots were taken a few minutes apart, early this morning.

The first is a juvenile green woodpecker. It was beneath a building and I suspect a window collision as the cause, though there were no visible signs on the building above.


Just a hundred yards away I came across a second fatality, possibly the result of a fall (it was beneath a tree).


Lunchtime I went in search of more pleasant things, and thought I 'd succeeded with this thrush.


The thrush was quietly feeding along a country lane, but a few seconds after this shot it hopped over the hedgerow into a sunlit field. I stepped across to take a better shot, but before I could even raise the camera a sparrowhawk had dropped from an overhanging tree and with the merest flurry of feather and two muted squeals, it was gone (and so was the thush). It lasted less than 2 seconds from start to finish.

Finally, I'm still working on stereoscopic images. They will improve as I get more practice, and I will almost certainly go cross-eyed in the process. But today's effort is I think an improvement on the butterfly (at least I intended to take this). As before, focus in front of the image (click to enlarge it) and the hedge should pop out into 3 dimensions. It can take a bit of practice, but once you get the hang of seeing them it's quite easy.

3D imageclick to enlarge
Nature Blog Network
Camera note: all shots taken with the EF 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6L USM IS lens.

6 comments

Some small creatures

Wednesday, 24. June 2009, 23:43:33

, , ,

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
Nature Blog Network
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.

13 comments

1 2 3 4 5 6 Next »

Showing posts 1 - 5 of 30.

Download Opera, the fastest and most secure browser

Photos

watervole_0609077755_wwt.jpgmallard_0609077806_wwt.jpgwatervole_0609077771_wwt.jpgswan_0609077676_wwt.jpgmallard_0609077802_wwt.jpgmallard_0609077804_wwt.jpgmallard_0609077805_wwt.jpggosling_0609077535_wwt.jpgswan_0609077681_wwt.jpgwatervole_0609077757_wwt.jpg

Everything is Permuted

Technical

Opera Community Groups

Wildlife Web Sites

Essential

F-Secure Blog

  • Windows 2K Server Patch Update

    Microsoft just released a patch to address the License Logging Server Heap Overflow Vulnerability (CVE-2009-2523). This vulnerability affects the License Logging Service (LLS), a feature which according to Microsoft is "designed to help customers manage licenses for Microsoft server products that ...

  • Why would anybody phish for XBOX accounts?

    Here's an example of a Youtube video that is used to drive traffic to a "XBOX" phishing site. The actual phishing site looks like this: The URL is fairly convincing. Turns out .TP is the country code for East Timor. But why would anybody phish for accounts of some online game ? Because you ...

  • When Phishing Isn't Phishing

    So, there are these apparent MySpace phishing e-mails going around ("... please be informed that you are required to update your MySpace account, Please update your MySpace account by clicking here... ") When you follow the link, you end up to this MySpace look-a-like page, hosted on various .uk ...

  • First iPhone worm found

    We have located the first iPhone worm, dubbed as Ikee . It's currently spreading in the wild, but it's only able to infect devices that have been 'jailbroken' by their owners. Jailbreaking removes iPhone's protection mechanisms, allowing users to run any software they want. Affected users will f ...

  • Sentencing

    This is a blog post from our blog in May 2007: Yesterday, three people were sentenced for writing the above malware (it's a variant of the Vanbot family ) and other attacks - including some DDoS action. The sentences were: 45 days jail, 40 days jail and 0 days jail, respectively. The sentence ...

Top Blogs

Website Photography and Video

    Wildlife Forums

    Copyright

    • Creative Commons Licence

      This blog and photographic material is protected by: Attribution-Non-Commercial 2.0 UK: England & Wales