All creatures great and small

Tiny froglet

Badger tracks

Leafcutter bee at work

Comma butterfly

Manx Loghtans just after shearing

Looking fleecier... just before leaving The Lodge

photos taken with iPhone 4S

Baaaaaaa!

photo taken with iPhone

Sheep

(their bark is worse than their bite)

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

The Lodge

Red-eyed (background) and Small Red-eyed (foreground) Damselflies

Red-eyed

Small Red-eyed


Common Darter

female Emperor ovipositing

female Brown Hawker resting between bouts of egg-laying

Manx Loghtan sheep

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

Beds birding

Started in Cambridgeshire, at Croydon. It's the highest point in the county and you can walk along the ridge, with nice views across the border into Bedfordshire.

Skylark

The abandoned medieval village of Clopton

A fox was hunting rabbits among the earthworks

Next stop, Broom gravel pits. Move along now, there's nothing for you here...

Yellowhammer

A pair of Oystercatchers fed along one of the pits. The bird not in this photo was ringed

Next, Pegsdon Hills, a Wildlife Trust reserve.

Peacocks were quite plentiful on the blossom

Meadow Pipits were in song all over the hill

Ring Ouzel record shot for Darren...

They have some nice sheep grazing the slopes

Triangulation point

Unusual subject matter for a pub sign nearby

Dog-violet

Sand Martins back at their colony along Meadow Lane

Ringed Plover at Willington

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

macro/landscape photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995 + Leica Apo Televid 77 with 20x eyepiece

Sheep

You can see the frost on their fleeces

photos taken with Canon EOS 30D, EF 300mm f/4L IS USM, Extender EF 1.4x II

Sheep

Smile!

Last week's winds brought lots of trees and branches crashing to the ground. The Manx Loghtans weren't bothered - it just means a tasty snack for them.

photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995

On the move

In case anyone wondered, I'm still alive.


I've moved house, that's all. Here's the garden. As you can see, it's quite big and open. I can't remember the garden list so far, but after a month it does include Peregrine and House Sparrow!

House Sparrow seems to be a major rarity just here, as we've only had two records of a single female bird.

Green Woodpeckers are somewhat more frequent, and a male Great Spotted visits every day for seed.


Up to five Pheasants also visit daily and are making a bit of a mess under the feeders.

Here are some of our noisier neighbours.

photos taken with Nikon Coolpix 995