Flock of woodpigeons feeding in wood

I like woodpigeons,they have a strange attractiveness about them something about that greyish colour which is offset by the whitish bars on their wings and around their neck.Photographed under ultra violet light the white bars are extremely vivid and visible from a long way off.The ones on their wings signal to each other and are magnified by flapping so the rest of the flock are notified of the others actions like a good feeding spot or danger.The neck bars play a role in mating behaviour.Woodpigeons eyes are very sensitive to the ultra violet areas of the light spectrum and so can pick this up very easily as well as the colours of various plants they eat that are very visible at this range too.Now that,s an idea,a type of trail camera that instead of picking up infra red,picks up ultra violet instead or as well as.The bird at the front in the first pic is a sort of advanced guard while the others are waiting in the wings,up in tree branches to be more precise and they won,t come down to feed for quite some while,an hour in this case until they are quite sure the first sacrificial birds are safe.Strangely enough when spooked these same first to feed birds are often the last to fly off........

More fox,a roe buck and a woodcock at night

A few more fox pics and a young roe buck showing off his new antler buttons....

Where are all the woodcock pics off the trail cameras?I was asked recently for last winter i had loads showing them probing through the leaves in ones,twos and threes.Back then it was very cold from november onwards and these little birds feed more in the woods when it,s frosty and frozen where it,s sheltered and they can more easily probe with their beaks in the softer leaf litter.Not so this winter with temperatures on most days in double figures, the nights barely dropping below 5 and only the second batch of frosts coming last week which have enabled the woodcock to keep on feeding out on the open pastures,not in the woods where my cameras are.Still time yet for some more pics of them but this is all i,ve got so far........

The (dead)squirrel,the stoat,then a fox

Still on the squirrel theme i placed this squirrel carcase in front of the cam to see what would happen.Predictably the local squirrel took a look but never hung around the area while the carcase was there,a stoat showed up but didn,t touch it(only the second time i,ve captured an image of a stoat)then it took a few passes before a fox decided to take it.Coincidentaly,Camera trap Codger placed a squirrel carcase in front of one of his cams around the same time but on the other side of the world and incredibly another squirrel took it(see his post in the blog list)I don,t often bait my camera traps but when i do there is often something of interest so may do it a bit more......

Fox catches squirrel

This fox hunting a squirrel has appeared to be doing it for some weeks now but it,s the first time i,ve caught it on camera.In the first pic the squirrel can be seen in the top left of the picture and in the next pic is caught.To the extreme right of the 3rd picture shows another squirrel safely on a branch,there has been quite regularly 2 squirrels scampering about here together.After that another squirrel pokes about and then the fox shows up again quite obviously after another one.I,ve never seen a picture of this happening before and can only remember finding a squirrel carcase that could of been attributed as a fox kill only once before.Some foxes,like most predators,can specialise in targeting certain quarry.

Annoyingly though i checked this cam today to find that the card had filled to 6000 odd pics,still with battery life left mind and had left the last 2 weeks unguarded so to speak.I last checked it a month ago and have been cutting it a bit close to the bone every time as this spot is a hive of,mostly squirrel and rabbit,activity as each time the card has been close to filling or the batteries near to running out.Who knows what has happened at this camspot in the meantime in fact noone will ever know so it,s every 2 weeks to check from now on,live and learn as they say.....

Woodcock probing the leaves

The first,i hope of many more and closer woodcock pictures this winter.I first saw one in the second week of october but the early ones just pass through until the stayers can be seen regularly in areas from november onwards i think.They lie up in the daytime usually in deep cover found in all sorts of woods but the thick rhodedendrons like here suit them well.They flight at dusk from these places just before the duck do on the way to their nocturnal feeding grounds which they prefer to be dampish meadows but also downland grass fields and golf courses,mostly flying low a bit bat like.At some places they can be seen individually but in numbers of up to a dozen shooting over hedges and dropping,bomblike,out of the sky to feed on some favoured fields.Not often recorded is their probing in woodland leaf litter at night at a place where they could very likely be roosting(on the ground)during the day so pics like these are quite a catch of one of the most interesting of birds.It is quite probable that,just like duck,they do not always flight at dusk if their food is so close to hand,there is no point in exposing themselves,in flight,to unnecessary risk......

Muntjac and fawn lying down at night

What are they up to these 2?The fawn at the back seems to be submissive(expected)of the doe and they are the 2 that have featured regularly on this blog.In the last pics the fawn appears to try and suckle but it must be getting a bit old for that now although the last pics of it doing this in front of the cam were not that long ago so the doe may be weaning it.These fawns spend at least their first year with their dams so she might be discouraging it from suckling but gently so it stays with her.......

2 foxes curled up

It,s strange how things can happen in groups.Earlier on in the year the infra red flash from the camera traps was,if not scaring,at least making them more wary ,this month though most subjects appear well at ease and accepting what is an alien object in a semi-natural enviroment.I have had a fox curl up in front of the cam before but not 2 so this sequence of pics may show a dog fox and then a vixen show up who have either mated before or maybe just bonded many weeks before mating.Or they could be sibling cubs.I suspect the former......