September 7th – Spotted on the way home, two deer, mom and daughter in the fields near Jockey Meadows, between Walsall Wood and Sheffield.
Very comfortable and relaxed, momma was browsing the crop stubble while her offspring ran around and had high jinks at the field margin.
Lovely to see, shame they weren’t closer…
August 29th – Here’s an odd one. In the dark, I spotted dark shapes in the field by the canal at Newtown, just at the back of Sandbeds Caravan Park. The shapes were actually six red deer, loafing and browsing the meadow.
I’ve not really noticed them active at night before, all though I do know they move around a lot nocturnally.
Sadly, the flash would reach that far and they were to active to take a long exposure photo. So I I achieved was shining eyes in the darkness.
August 27th – As I travelled home along the canal, I listened to the rain singing on the water, and enjoyed the peace and quiet. Near the western side of the Watermead Estate, I came upon the swan family, still at a huge nine, still growing.
They were clearly feeling a bit chippy as momma swan took exception to my footwear and pecked at my feet continually, and the offspring seemed to be quite tetchy as well.
These gorgeous, truculent birds remain beautiful, and their antics made the afternoon, really, as did the canalside life and noting that the Canal and River Trust cleanup crew – usually mostly volunteer staffed – had been out doing their thing.
Thanks, people.
August 22nd – I note a fair crop of acorns this year, and like last, I was caught by false memory with the knopper galls.
I tend to think these parasite-created growths happen earlier in the year than they actually do, and always assume we’re not going to see any when they’ve not appeared by late July. Since they’re caused by a wasp larva hatching in the acorn bud, they can’t occur earlier than the fruit, can they?
The tiny wasp that drills it’s egg in to the fruit bud earlier in the year – coated in a secretion that will corrupt the bud’s growth plan into these curious galls – is pretty unremarkable. But the distorted, knobbly knopper galls are glossy, leathery and fascinating.
Nature can be very weird sometimes.
August 21st – Had no idea this was a genuine issue at Middleton Lakes.
I guess that rules out of seeing otters in more urban environments then. Sad but fascinating, I had no idea there was a program to get these wonderful creatures at the new nature reserve.
August 19th – The rains of the day had brought out the damp-loving creatures, though sadly I didn’t see any amphibians (although in my tired state I probably just didn’t notice them). These snails comfortably beat me travelling up Brownhills High Street on my mission to call in at the takeaway for a curry.
Snails get a very bad press really, but they are such fascinating things.
August 15th – A real treat for the seventh day of seven days of wildlife, the challenge set me by reader Susan Forster. I was riding through Pleck, and I spotted something wriggling, right in the middle of the road; stopping to investigate, I found this elephant hawkmoth caterpillar.
About two inches in length and ½ inch diameter, this is a big creepy crawly, not for the faint heated, but harmless and rather fascinating. Camouflaged to look like a plant stalk or twig, it has fake eyes and a bulbous head to make it look far more threatening than it really is, should it be threatened. Living mainly on willowherb or fuchsias, I suspect this one had been dropped by a bird, and thus escaped being lunch, and after posing for photos, was popped back on the scrub I think it came from, thus avoiding being squished.
This is a truly huge, fascinating caterpillar, and although common, a great chance find. Read more about it here.
August 14th – And no series of wildlife pics would be complete without the bunnies. Oddly, the ones up on the dam at Chasewater seem to have vanished, so I’ve been looking for others when out an about; I saw these in a garden near Carroway Head. These are true rural rabbits; scruffy, dog-eared and showing signs of skin problems, these are animals that have seen a thing or two. But the eyes are bright and they were alert and content.
I do like the rabbits.
August 13th – I went up to Freda’s Grave via Chase Road, and noticed that near the shale parking area, someone had been feeding the birds on an old tree stump. Sat with the camera, me and a companion took loads of pictures as a variety of songbirds swooped in and out.
Photographing these busy little birds is actually hard – they’re so fast, it’s hard to focus and get a decent picture and better reactions than mine are clearly required.
A more willing subject was found at the the deserted picnic area near Birches Valley, where Mrs. Squirrel was hoovering up the day’s dropped morsels and helpfully giving some good camera face.
Not a bad entry for the seven days of wildlife challenge…
August 12th – I spotted this chap well out of my reach in a garden at Lullington. I do hope he was OK. He was moving well, and it was fairly late in the day. He looked like a large hedgehog, but I’m aware that if you see one in the daylight it can be a bad sign.
A concerning entry for the ‘7 days of wildlife’ series inspired by Susan Forster.
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