Fly Agarics

Sweet Chestnuts

Parasol mushroom

Elderberries

Autumn leaves at The Lodge

photos taken with iPhone 4S

Late autumn at The Lodge

Leaves and stuff

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Fly Agaric

photo taken with Apple iPhone 3GS

A lunchtime walk

I took the less hilly route


Sun's gone in again...






Fairy satellite dish, pointing south










photos taken with iPhone 3GS

Leaves 'n' stuff

Here's a brief digest of my wildlife experiences over the past couple of weeks...

• Enjoying beautiful Japanese maple leaves still on a tree at The Lodge
• Saw a Stoat climbing about 30 feet up a big pine tree right outside my office window. It seemed totally at home and scampered up as happily as any squirrel. I suppose this must happen more often during the bird breeding season, but it was new for me...
• Also in Stoat News, I saw my first garden Stoat, trying very hard to catch birds
  
• Acquired a dead Long-tailed Tit (which had flown into a car and broken its neck), now in residence in my freezer. I wonder how much it would cost to get it stuffed?
• Celebrated six years of ringing at Beeston last weekend by catching the first Redwing for the site! That was after about 30,000 Redwings were counted over Sandy in one day. Sadly I missed all that
  
• Watching squirrels carrying sweet chestnut cases - covered in big spines! - around. They must really like the contents to put up with the spikiness...
  
• Tawny Owls quite vocal at the moment - sounds like there's a female in our big ash tree. Wonder if she roosts in the hole used by Jackdaws in spring?
• One of the Great Tits we ringed in the garden in August has been found dead, just down the road, after crashing into a window, while one of 'our' Greenfinches has been caught three miles away, by Del who rings here!
  
• Awaiting the annual invasion of Harlequin ladybirds trying to get into our house...
  

photo taken with Canon EOS 30D

Wordless Wednesday

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Autumn at The Lodge

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640 or Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Red Admiralty

Six Red Admirals, all on one sunny clump of Asters

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM

Coast

Gibraltar Point, early doors

In our usual perverse fashion, we went to Lincolnshire on Friday night because there were lots of good birds turning up in Norfolk and East Yorkshire.

Camping is usually filled with experiences to delight the senses; unsurprisingly, it was bloody cold at night, but we added Little Owl and Barn Owl to our tent list (Bittern is probably still the best bird on it).

The absurdly well-equipped (internet, gas heater, fairy lights) campers in the tent next to ours kindly loaned us their battery-powered airbed inflator, which was nice. Later on, they had a noisy argument, which was not so nice.

A wander round Skegness seafront early on Saturday was next to useless, due to thick fog which persisted until about 1pm. If there were any good birds, they were invisible. Eventually we went to Gibraltar Point (nice cafe) and wandered around the dunes. There weren't many birds around and nothing was moving, but a Yellow-browed Warbler gave itself away by calling from an inaccessible bush.

We'd nearly finished trudging around when a last look along the road revealed another Yellow-browed, flitting around in an Elder bush - briefly.

Sunday morning was less foggy, and sunny briefly before the sun got up behind the clouds. The skies were a bit more lively, with skeins of Pink-footed Geese heading for Norfolk, the odd Redwing, Brambling and plenty of Siskins and Redpolls.

photos taken with Canon Powershot A640