From the Window in Elveden Forest

Selection of wildlife seen from our villa window.

Center Parcs Wildlife

I am spending a few days at Elveden Forest with Sadie and El. The birds and squirrels are very used to people and visit our patio. Here are the best of today's effort. The Jay came much closer but I wasn't ready with the camera. I was trying for birds in flight so am pleased with the Bluetit and Marsh tit (or is it Willow?). The Coal tit perched obligingly on the branch I had erected for it.

Story of a Fox

I have been starting to sort through my Swiss holiday images and thought I would record the tale of the Fox as a lesson on keeping your longest lens on the camera when walking. I had been photographing flowers and was in a bit of a hurry to get the train back to Wengen so did not change to longer lens. Round the corner comes this bold fox carrying a discarded sandwich so the first shot was with the 50mm (fortunately not the 24mm). He came pretty close so a reasonable shot was had before he headed off into the rocks on the left. As I had a hard-boiled egg left over from lunch (dyed an orange colour!), I threw this for him as delaying tactics while I changed lenses. It worked and with my 70-200 mm I was able to get closer photos as he buried the egg and then went back to retrieve more discarded lunch.

Visit to Monach Farm

Thanks to Ian, we had a great afternoon at Monach farm Hilton, where they keep many rare breeds of goats as well as a riding stables with various breeds of horses etc. the goats are delightful and their milk makes very good ice cream!
Image two needs a caption - any suggestions?

Beneficial Visitors to the Garden

Mrs Tiggiwinkle (or perhaps Mister) wandered across the lawn this morning. Always glad to see one in the garden as they help keep down the slug. The Lacewing is also welcome as both the adults and larvae feed on greenfly.

Monochrome nature

As part of a talk I am giving on Sunday, I have been working on some images that I have always thought would be best in monochrome. I have not been disappointed as these four images have very much more impact in monochrome than their colour counterparts. My next task is to prepare a webpage with the addition of few more of these conversions

Corsac Foxes at Hamerton

The Corsac Foxes looked quite at home in the snow on Wednesday. They are very active but stop long enough for a shot while looking around before grabbing the food that had been put out.

Maned Wolves at Hamerton

The Maned Wolves from South America have a very strange build and gait. I decided to do some slow panning to get rid of the fences and posts in the background and was quite pleased with the effects.

A Couple of Lion Pictures from Woburn

Woburn Safari Park did not open the drive through part till around lunchtime as it was too foggy for the Rangers to see the gates and any animals that might be attempting a breakout with the cars.

When we did get in the mist made for very attractive backgrounds though the low light levels meant using high ISO settings. Need a bit of 'gardening' to remove stray twigs in top image.

Bengal Tiger

Pensive look from Blizzard the white Bengal tiger at Hamerton Wildlife Park.

Taken with 400mm lens so cage wires have been thrown out of focus but does gives a softness to the images that I like.

Goodbye

Unfortunately my holiday in Devon only lasted a couple of days as I had to return when my mother was taken into hospital. As I left our cottage, the cows obviously wished to say goodbye. I particularly like the elegant legs on the second image.

Fox Part Two

Fox came back for a long visit today and here is the evidence of what it is eating!

Visitor to our Garden

Looked out of bedroom window while dressing this morning and came face to face with this fox (we live in a bungalow!). It was eating some apples that I had thrown onto the lawn the day before and seemed quite unafraid though obviously aware of the camera being pointed at it.

Possibly a female with cubs still feeding from her and therefore very hungry but I am still surprised that she was eating apples.

Muntjac

Looking out of my window, thinking about going out and doing a bit of weeding, when a muntjac came through the hedge. It stayed for about half an hour trimming down weeds (and more precious plants) very effectively.

Website updated

At last, I have got round to putting South Africa, Bass Rock and Ecuador Nature pictures onto my website http://www.pin-sharp.co.uk

Wolf brothers

First of some pictures of a European wolf pack. Two are obviously brothers with identically marked faces.