The Fox & Hedgehog

Bedford Purlieus butterflies

Bedford Purlieus is a slice of ancient woodland not far from Peterborough. This weekend was lovely and hot and the butterflies were out in great numbers. There were very good numbers of Ringlets, Meadow Browns and Large Skippers, but the stars of the show were Silver-washed Fritillaries, White Admirals and White-letter Hairstreaks, all in good numbers. I also saw a Hummingbird Hawkmoth, but wasn't quick enough to get the shots...

Small Whites and a Comma feed on horse dung



Silver-washed Fritillary



White Admiral




White-letter Hairstreaks

More IR fox photos

On the second night with the Bushnell infra-red camera trap, it photographed a cat and took lots more photos of the same fox that came yesterday. I set the camera a bit closer to the bait (a bit of mouldy quiche, I'm afraid), so the shots are slightly better...

Infra-red photography

I'm testing a Bushnell infra-red trip camera in my garden at the moment. I put some old pizza and pasta (I know, not the greatest food) and some other scraps in the garden to hope to get Red Foxes. And it worked! We also got this Hedgehog, the first definite record in the garden this year.
I will refine the settings tonight, as it was too sensitive and picked up every passing moth! I will also put the camera a bit closer to any bait I can muster.

Sadly deceased

I found this male Kingfisher dead at the top of the stairway up to our offices this morning. I am not sure how it died, but there were no obvious wounds and the neck was very floppy. I suspect that it may have flown up from the carp pond and hit one of the shiny windows. These photos were taken by Darren Harbar of Practical Photography magazine.

Hoverfly

Volucella pellucens

Our pond

At the moment our garden pond is looking very juicy. Check out the lush vegetation. The spiky floating plants are Water Soldier and the mini-waterlilies are Frogbit. I'm not sure what the giant buttercup like plants are, but they are a bit of an invasive nuisance, so I have kept them to a minimum. The Water Docks are as tall as me!

Barn Owl on a post

Note that this BTO-ringed bird is different from the flying one in the post below.

Barn Owls galore!

Mugged