It’s once again that time to waffle on and seek attention in the form of showing ya’ll a few pics and me mumbling on about what i see whilst i busily idle away through life.
This is all from Aprils observations.
Badger:
A lone Badger forages desperately in the middle of a field, oblivious to the fact that i’m walking up to it to watch, video and takes pics.
At one point, he even walks to within a few feet of me.
Head on and hungry.
His likely to have been pushed out of a territory and is struggling on his own to survive.
This field has been flooded for months, all the worms and beetles have long gone, but still, he must try..
Unusually pale, a signal of his poor health.
First came the Sand Martins, then the Swallows and the House Martins, Tricky to Photograph in flight.
Toads, hundreds of then having travelled far and over many roads, find their way to the place of birth and to Spawn.
Many females will have had to carry a male, even two for a day or so.
But finally, she can spawn, and he’s there on hand to fertilise the eggs as they leave her body.
And when i stuck a waterproof camera on a stick, i gained a whole new view of life in the stream by where i now stay.
Check out all these vids below.
toads spawning
And there’s more than just Toads there…
Pike
Also getting ready to spawn are these, and what great little fish they are. I’ve personally never seen them properly before, so this was a real treat.
Stickleback
Also a less common fish of streams, more found in rivers and larger bodies of water. These come to shallower places to spawn amongst tree roots.
roach
Eels spawn in the sea, then their offspring swim to rivers and streams as elvers to grow and mature, they then return to the sea and the cycle continues.
Freshwater eel
Baby predator.
jack pike
I also filmed a bullhead, but it’s rubbisher than that lot ^^
As the flowers come, so do the pollenators, like this Ash mining bee.
Or a head on look of another bee.
Also lizards come out to enjoy the warmth. Here’s a slow worm and check out it’s eyelid. Snakes don’t have them, so if a slow worm doesn’t blink, be warned…
Dippers. I’m so lucky, that a pair of these have decided to nest here, in a tunnel by the water wheel. This makes me happy.
And today after doing my butterfly survey, where my species total goes up to 9, I got up close to an Adder.
I started off from a distance to this stunning mature male and used the telephoto lens to get in close.
But not close enough, so after it moved for me, i put on the 100mm macro and from about 400mm away snapped a few more pics. Shame about the grass blades. This is lightly cropped.
And finally a close up on the Adders armour.
Happy springtime peeps.
Enjoy it, the long light days, the sounds and the smells and the warmth on the skin..
🙂