A Little Bit of Everything.....

There's just so much going on at the moment that I thought I would publish a "catch-all" article to try and tie everything together.

Firstly, I managed to capture one of our glow -worms mating. It was a little difficult as I had a crap camera and it was necessarily dark! However, as you can see the male bug is a "click-beetle" and therefore flies. The female does not, hence her need to attract the flying males down to the ground with her glowing abdomen. The other evening we located eleven such females in our garden and anyone who saw us myopically peering into our lawn and chipping heap at 10.30 at night would have thought us mad. I'm not at all sure they would be wrong!

A Mating Glow Worm Couple...

Frankie has been sitting in the garden with her camcorder at hand in an attempt to capture some of the bird life we have here. She has fallen in love with the woodpeckers that visit our feeders especially as they have been feeding a youngster with the nuts we (expensively) provide for them. Also, the other day we had a rare visitor (for us) as we don't very often see the exotically coloured Goldfinch here in the woods. This bird is such a beauty and would be equally at home with any of the strikingly plumaged birds of jungle, bush or outback.

Finally, our chickens are home....but more of that in the next blog......

Let it snow....

Only an inch or two by first light....

It seems too short a time since we last had a snowfall of such proportions. We moved house in the last lot only to be snowed in for a couple of days afterwards with up to sixteen inches more of the stuff. Not that we minded - it gave us a break to square the cottage. Yet here we are with November still not ended, temperatures dropping to stay at around freezing during the day and well below that during the night. Altnahara in the Highlands recorded -20 and -10 has been fairly common across the UK.

It does, however make for some pretty scenery and walking around the estate today with the camera proved lucrative enough as far as Chocolate Box photography is concerned.

My wife was saying how much she loves the sound of the crunch of footsteps in the snow and it really is an evocative sound. The sound and sight of snow takes one straight back to one's childhood. I wasn't brought up in the UK but West Germany until my teens and snow was certainly not uncommon over in Europe where my father was stationed, being further east. So snow for me is a direct memory link to my formative years, sledges, thick gloves and hats being requisite from November to February.

The Holly is full of berries this year...

Our bird feeders are taking a severe hammering. We're having to fill them up on a daily basis with a scattering of seeds around the base to feed the pheasants, robins, pied wagtails and other visitors that can't or don't like getting up to the feeders. I haven't seen much sign of the rabbits, though the squirrels are as abundant as always. I suppose all the wildlife struggles at this time of year, so we're glad to help really.

Togging and Blogging

All the photographs on this posting were taken within just two or three days - it's amazing how when you start looking, you start seeing! As Franc and I continued to walk around the estate, it seemed that we only needed to name what we wanted to see and it would appear. We mentioned that we hadn't seen any grass snakes - we found 4 and a lizard! We then said that we hadn't had any clear sightings of deer and then two showed up whilst we were waiting for the fox cubs. (see my previous blog.)

Since we've been living here we have heard the Tawny Owls (both sexes) on a regular basis, but we had never seen one. I've had a few brief sightings of Barn Owls as they quarter they fields near the castle, but nothing clear. Tonight, as Franc was working, I went for another long walk around to the back of the fox den, but they didn't show. As it was getting dark, I stood at the escarpment and looking around I saw a fluffy shape high in the oak tree. After a brief scramble, I managed to get within 15 to 20 feet of the bird which had no intention of moving or acknowledging me in any way. What an amazing sight. The bird didn't move as I flashed away, barely opening an eye in disdain as I quivered and quaked 40 feet above the ground.

I took some photo's with flash as it was pretty dark by now, but there it was - a clear sighting of a Tawny. Brilliant.

It's difficult to contain myself at times. I'm fortunate in that Franc shares my wonder and enjoys our long walks around the estate. She wouldn't touch the snake or slow worm though, but she is pretty good.

Blurrds!

The woodpecker above is a regular visitor to our new garden (I'm not sure how long I can keep referring to it as new, but there are just so many changes on a daily basis that makes it feel as if we only moved in yesterday) and I've tried to capture it on camera for a while now. It hasn't been at all easy and this part of photography has always proved to be problematic for me.

A Buzzard in The Highlands

I've been attempting to photograph birds for many, many years. The results have been less than stunning. I'm never close enough, never patient enough and certainly not technical enough to produce some of the results that my colleagues on Pike&Preditors Photography forum do. As you can see from the diversity of quality on this post, my results have been very hit and miss.

Just occassionally though, as with the buzzard photo, a lucky shot comes along and the result looks marginally impressive. Obviously with the bigger birds, the problem of nearness to the lens is reduced slightly, but most big birds are just as shy as their smaller brethren and they tend to stay even further away.


The garden shots here show that we do have a diversity of species to watch; nuthatches, tits including the willow tit two pictures above, pheasants, jackdaws, tree creepers, robins, chaffinches, jays, woodpeckers and the ubiquitous blackbird. There are so many to see that I'm hoping to improve my patience and thus, my portfolio of unblurred birds.