Tag Archives: wildlife

Parakeets Are Noisy Little Sods

It used to be that I thought parakeets were to be found in a park in London. They seem to have been quite effective at surviving and thriving in the UK and now they seem to crop up all over the place. I have seen them out near Heathrow and in Bushy Park. Richmond Park has had them for a long time, I think. They do provide a flash of colour in the south of England, but they are not a quiet bird. Their call is piercing, and they seem to be calling all of the time.

They are also fast fliers and getting shots of them while airborne has been a struggle for me. Since they are quite small, you need a long lens to get a decent image and picking them up with a long lens and then tracking – often against a busy backdrop – is very challenging. When they are in the trees I have had more success. Here are some shots that I have got of them in recent months. I will hopefully do a better job of catching them in flight before too long.

Rutting Stags in Action(ish)

Leave a Reply

Part of the reason for our visit to Bushy Park was because the rut was underway and I thought it might be possible to see the stags at their best. I hadn’t anticipated just how prevalent the deer herds would be. One herd was right in the middle of the trails and, while there was a dominant male that was overseeing things, there were a couple of younger stags within the herd.

These two were trying out their jousting skills. They would engage their antlers and push each other around for a bit before getting distracted by something nearby. They would look at that for a while and then get back into training. It felt like they weren’t really trying to prove anything to each other but were just getting in practice for the days when they might be genuine contenders for dominance.

Initially, I was on the side away from the sun and thought I would have to make do with that. However, it proved easier than I thought to walk around them and get shots from the other side. They seemed uninterested in the people that were watching them. After grabbing a bunch of images, I thought that video might be a better way to record their action – even if it makes it clear that they weren’t really going for it.

Koalas Are Too Coy

Leave a Reply

Over the years, I have been to plenty of zoos. As a result, I would have thought I had seen koalas at some point but, as I write this, I am struggling to think when I might have done so. Marwell has some koalas so, maybe they were the first I had encountered in person. I am not sure whether they recognised the potential significance of this moment. While there were a few of them in the enclosure, they didn’t seem that bothered about our presence.

I understand that they have a reputation for being sleepy (and bad tempered) so having to wait for open eyes was going to be a problem, but they also seemed to want to have their heads turned away from everyone. I waited a bit to get something, but it wasn’t going to be worth holding everything up. This was the best I could manage.

Cattle Waiting at the Feed Stop

Leave a Reply

The final day of the charity bike ride had me suffering from the previous two days and with enough knee pain to make another 76 miles seem like a bad plan. Instead, I spent the day in a support vehicle moving from rest stop to rest stop helping out the riders that weren’t as feeble as me. At one of these stops, I went up the access road to await the riders. A herd of cows were lying in the field by the road, and they looked so tranquil, I couldn’t help but grab a few photos.

Keep a Safe Distance from These Guys

Leave a Reply

This post is another on a bit of a theme at the moment. While walking through Windsor Great Park, we made a loop that brought us to the statue of George III at the end of the Long Walk. As we started to head back to our starting point, I realised the route we were taking was not really the best, so we retraced our steps and headed south down the hill. Almost immediately, we got a surprise.

Just a short distance away from the statue with the many visitors that were there on a sunny weekend afternoon was a large herd of deer. This included some quite chunky looking stags that seemed quite aware of our presence. We gave them a wide berth and, while a grabbed a few shots with the long lens, I didn’t fancy attracting any more of their attention than we already had.

Herdwick Sheep

Leave a Reply

I wasn’t previously aware that there is a breed of sheep that is predominantly localised to the Lake District. These are Herdwick Sheep. They are well suited to the rugged terrain of the Lakes and can handle living in the exposed countryside throughout the year. They have quite a distinctive look and the colours of their fleeces are unusual. We saw plenty of them during our visit and I loved the different looks of them as they age. My favourite is when they are in the grey phase. I just thought they looked really interesting.

Baby Coots Are Not That Cute

Leave a Reply

I was walking through the Swiss Garden at Shuttleworth prior to the air show getting underway. In the pond was a family of coots. The parents were diving under for food while the “kids” were hanging around on the surface and making a ton of noise! Normally baby birds are very cute. However, I don’t think that same can be said for baby coots. (Is there a specific name for a baby coot?) They might not have been adorable, but I couldn’t help but get some photos of them.

Staying 50m Away

Leave a Reply

We took a walk through the grounds at Tatton Park while on our way to the Lake District. The park is known for its herds of deer, and we wanted to see some – well, I was particularly keen to see some and get some photos! It was the time for the rut and so it is wise to be more careful than usual around the deer. Signs warned everyone to stay at least 50m away from the deer. Sometimes that was harder than you might think.

Some of the males were off doing their own thing. That might include being on the ground watching things around you and, as you walk along, you didn’t always spot them quickly. Finding a large beast with extensive antlers staring at you can be quite startling. We did manage to stay out of the way, but it required attention.

When we came to the larger herds, the males were more active. As they asserted their dominance, there was much bellowing and pacing plus the occasional chase after a male that got too close. They would then start wandering towards us. I don’t think that they had read the signs about keeping a distance. We consequently were making an effort to keep our distance. I don’t know what the best behaviour is with deer. I’ve seen plenty about what to do with bears, but I don’t know what works for a deer. Fortunately, we didn’t have to find out. Our distance was sufficient.

Early Morning Deer Encounter

Leave a Reply

Whenever I take a morning walk around Barton Meadows Nature Reserve, I am hoping that I will come across some local wildlife. The most likely encounter – aside from the birds – will be the deer. I don’t always take the camera with a long lens on these walks since they are more about getting some exercise in before starting work, but I do worry that I will encounter something special when I don’t. I had seen three deer in the middle of one field so assumed I was done with deer. Then, as I came up to the corner of another field, I saw one walking along the fence line. I tried not to disturb it by staying behind the hedge and got the phone out. Eventually it spotted me and ran a short distance before stopping, turning to face me and staring. Then it ran away. Here is the phone video I got.

The Red Pandas Caught Me Out

Leave a Reply

Longleat has a boat cruise that takes you up a lake to look at various parts of their collection. The line to wait for the boat seemed to take a long time and not move very much but we weren’t in a hurry. As we got closer to the boarding area, we were next to signs discussing Red Pandas. The signs were interesting and talked about the pandas and their life. As we stood there for ages, I casually said to Nancy it would have been better if they actually had some pandas near the sign. Some time passed before a red panda came wandering through the shrubs next to us. Of course, they didn’t put up signs about an animal that wasn’t there.

I felt like quite a dope, but we had been there for ages with no sign of any pandas. When this one walked through, everyone around us was taken aback too so it was quite the star. Besides, we had been standing around for ages, so a cute red animal was a great change. There were actually two of them in there. They alternated between patrolling their space and climbing the trees. I was now more focused on them and hoped we wouldn’t board the boat too soon. They did disappear again after a while, so I was happy to get onboard. When we disembarked, you could see one of the pandas lounging on a branch near the dock. Cute looking things although those claws and teeth look pretty sharp!