In case you missed it

Another look out of the 'stock room' window saw me reaching for the binoculars to find out if the shapeless brown lump in the middle of the field was a pile of horse poo or the hare the earlier photos had revealed. It turned out to be the hare with its ears down and its back to me. I hastily set up the tripod by the back fence and hoped the evening sun would illuminate the animal when it was doing something interesting. A cloud passed in front of the sun almost immediately I was set up.

Patience paid off though. The hare got up, had a stretch and started eating. Then it posed as the sunlight returned briefly. Still a little far away, and the low light made for grainy shots, but I might have to take an early morning look for the hare some time.

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Death among the buttercups

I had to pop up to the 'stock room' a few minutes ago and from the window saw a couple of crows leaping and flapping about across the other side of the field. Watching more intently I saw an agitated female pheasant trying to fend them off. I reckoned she must have been defending her brood so I rushed back downstairs and grabbed the camera with the long lens. Not long enough for detail, but the following blurry shots (click them to see them bigger) tell the sad story.

The crow then proceeded to eat its lunch.

Photography often reveals the unseen. Concentrating on the action I was oblivious to a creature that was keeping its head down, but editing the images it was revealed.

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Scaling down

Yesterday I had to get to the Post Office early and then in to town to pick up a new flash gun. On my way home I stopped off at a dragonfly breeding pond to see what was what before getting back to listen to the test match. The sun shone and it was warm as I left the car park.

As soon as I found the pond a load of damsels flew up and away across the grass and flowers bordering the water. It was the dragonflies I wanted to have a look at. My first glimpse of one was like that of the damsels - flying away, but they were to be seen.

My first photos were of far off insects amongst the clutter of plant stems. I wandered round for a while, checking my watch so I wouldn't miss the first overs of the day, but didn't see much else. On the way out a four spotted chaser landed on a rush stem overhanging the water and let me get reasonably close. This made for a nice soft background to set off the fine wing detail. A few wobbly shots were taken using natural light, followed by one sharp shot, then I tried the in-camera flash - not having taken any batteries for the new gun... This turned out okay but a bit overdone with the flash despite adjusting the output.

Four spotted chaser

During the lunch break at Old Trafford, having read the manual for the flash, I nipped round the back of my garage where bees were buzzing round some spiky plant. The honey bees were more predictable, working in a logical way along the flowers. The small bumble bees that I really wanted to photograph were far more erratic. They would land on a flower then buzz off to another flower, but one that could be anywhere rather than a few inches away. Stupid creatures!

 Honey bee - I guess...

As expected, when I went in search of the warblers I had seen yesterday in the evening they were notable for their calls from unseen perches. Rain is on its way over the next few days. I'm hoping it's accompanied by rod blanks so I can finally start catching up again.

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It was ever thus

The morning was spent listening to the test match and working. The afternoon was spent listening to the test match and photographing sparrows in the garden. There are lots of young uns around and their attempts at bathing are most entertaining. Yet again the dead maggots proved a big draw and there were adults taking them to cram into their offspring and juveniles helping themselves.

House sparrows

After close of play (brought on by bad light), a too-much-chilli powder evening meal and listening to the Archers I went out for a canal-side walk, taking my 70-300 zoom with the macro facility looking for insects and spiders, when the sun came out again. As soon as I approached the reedbeds reed warblers were in audible evidence and in good view too. Typical. I snuck off into a field of thistles and immediately heard a chiffchaff, and then saw a couple of them in the hedgerow.

Lacking much cover I squatted down in the thistles and took my chances. If I'd had the right lens I might have got some reasonable shots, as it was I had to settle for enhancing heavy crops. But they're okay on the screen if not good enough to print out at poster size! The unexpected blackcap that appeared briefly deep in the hawthorn was less presentable, but I present it here for entertainment value.

Male blackcap

Chiffchaff

Leaving the field I carried on, hearing and then seeing a whitethroat and yet more reed warblers out in the open along the reeds' edge. I was all set to grab a shot of a cranefly when it flew. That was the only insect I saw in the hour or so I was out looking for insects.

I guess the only way to be prepared for all eventualities is to take the kitchen sink along. Although that would probably guarantee seeing nothing at all, or being faced with too many choices. Hey ho. All part of life's rich pageant.

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A rudd hunt

An early phone call revealed that I still have to wait until next week for my blank order (some of it...) to arrive. Faced with the depressing prospect of sitting at home twiddling my thumbs I popped to the tackle shop to buy myself some maggots to add to the sweetcorn I already had and threw my float rod in the car with some other gear. The pond, for that's all it is, I was heading for is notoriously difficult to find. I'd visited the place once before, many years ago, and got lost. Today was no different.

Rumour has it the place is full of rudd with a reasonable average size. Well, that was last summer. This summer the place is crammed with tiny rudd. Minnow sized and not much bigger. First chuck in shortly after one o'clock with a single white maggot on a size sixteen saw the float sail away, resulting in the first of numerous mini-rudd.

A float

It was a fish a cast until I got fed up. I took the photo below of one to try out the close up attachment for my DSLR. After releasing the fish I switched to a grain of corn and set the float a bit deeper to put the bait on the bottom, with the bulk shot slid down the line to get the bait through the rudd in the surface layers.

Tiny, tiny rudd

While I was reviewing the photo on the camera's screen the rod butt hit my right leg. I looked up to see the rod tip arching down. It turned out a tench, probably the second smallest I have ever caught, had hooked itself. The fight revealed that my old Abu 501 is in need of some attention. It was far from smooth when backwinding.

1st tench of the year!

The corn certainly put the mini-rudd off. Bites slowed right down. I shallowed the float up to avoid any more tench and catapulted out some freebies. Almost immediately the float sank and I struck into a fish that felt like a better rudd. It came off... There was a lull then I had two bites in two cast resulting in two rudd of eight or ten ounces.

A pale rudd

Heavily coloured water always means pale looking fish, and all the rudd and the tench were like that. It's a shame, as it takes some of the pleasure away for me. One thing's for sure, a few perch in the pond would wax fat on all the rudd! For a while I amused myself by seeing how many maggots on the hook it would take to deter the tiny fish. I gave up at four. The bites did slow down, but eventually a fish would manage to get the hook in its mouth. Then I went back to the corn.

This produced the biggest rudd of the session, all 14oz of it. A bit of an old warrior too with missing scales and top lip. That was my signal to wrap up. It hadn't been quite the fishing I had hoped for. Kind of fun, but all the mini-rudd did was make me think what good baits they'd make for perch or eels.

In between bites on the corn I'd tried my hand at photographing damselflies that were alighting on an alder sapling at the water's edge. The red ones were more spooky than the blue ones. Any sign of movement and they'd fly off, while the blue ones were far more tolerant. I still can't get the hang of this close up photography lark to my satisfaction.

Not a blue damselfly

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Heading for the hills

After a dull and dismal start to the day it turned sunny and warm as promised. Another milk run was in the offing, a little further afield towards hill country. The first port of call was a disused quarry in search of warblers. Blackcaps in particular. I settled into a sunny corner and listened. Unfortunately there was some tree felling going on and the air was rent by the sound of chainsaws. I could hear a chiffchaff's annoying tweets, then a willow warbler close by. I managed to call it in close, briefly, and got one horribly fuzzy pic.

Then I got distracted by a flash of black and white beyond a small silver birch. Something had landed at the edge of the small pool I was sitting above. I was treated to a close, but obscured, view of a jay bathing and shaking itself dry.

There was still plenty of birdsong, but the racket of the saws was too much for me. I left for the moors. The route I took was pretty barren - the maintained path keeping too far away from where anything might live - with no photo ops to speak of. I was hoping to track down a redstart but failed miserably. There will be more there than I saw in my fleeting walk up the beck and back so worth another visit at some stage.

By now I was roasting and the final leg of my milk run, looking for dipper and grey wagtail habitat was abandoned. On the way home I cooled off and carried on to the marsh. Here there were larks aplenty, one of which obliged by perching on a fence post.

All this bird chasing is getting too much. I really must go catch myself some fish.

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