Tag Archives: wildlife

I Thought You Were a Dog and You Didn’t Know I Was There!

I was walking along the River Crane looking to see if I could get a shot of the kingfisher I had seen briefly zipping by. I wasn’t having much luck, and I suspect my presence was enough to send the kingfisher elsewhere. As I looked up the river, I saw something running towards me. Plenty of people walk through the area and I assumed that someone was walking their dog and that it had run ahead. It was bounding towards me and, only as it got closer, it realised I was there. It was as surprised as I was because, at that point, I realised it wasn’t a dog. It was a muntjac. It bolted around me and across the bridge over the river. I barely got a sharp shot of it given that it was moving fast and I hadn’t been ready to take a shot. I wonder which of us was more surprised.

If You Go, I Can Come Back to My Feeding Spot

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Nancy and I were driving back down from Kirkstone Pass towards our hotel. I pulled off into a lay-by to take some photos of the valley and the opposite hills. I got out of the car and took a number of shots and then got back in the car. Nancy asked me if I had got good shots of the deer. I had not even seen them. I got back out of the car and spooked them. This was the first time I had seen them, but they were very close to us. They ran down the hill and then stopped. I took these shots of them in the undergrowth as they stared at me. I guess they were just hoping I would soon get lost so they could get on with their meal. I obliged…

People and the Deer in Close Proximity

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The rutting deer I posted about previously were in amongst the large herds of deer in Bushy Park. The park gives guidance on keeping out of the way of the deer and specifically keeping dogs on leads. However, that didn’t seem to have any impact. People seemed to be close to the deer on a regular basis. Even dogs were running free. Strangely, none of this seemed to cause any trouble. Perhaps the dogs and the deer are just used to each other.

At the time I was more focused on getting photos of the deer and not having people interrupting the shots. Afterwards, I wished I had taken more photos to show how the two groups were interacting (sort of) in such a regular way. These shots hopefully give some impression of how close they were to each other. I am not getting that close to a stag, however relaxed it might seem!

Parakeets Are Noisy Little Sods

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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)

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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

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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.