Testing out the Coolpix in-camera timelapse feature

...and shovelling barrow loads of ashes and coal from the fire area on the wayleave to coat the really muddy paths down around camp.

Samhain and Birthday weekend

Swedish log fires - chopped ready for Yule

Another huge bonfire made light work of yet more Rhodies, as four of us spent a sunny afternoon around Samhain chopping and feeding the fire. Unfortunately we were not able to get the chipper started, as it would have been idea material to cover the muddy paths with at this time of year. Will try again next time and in the mean time use the mound of coals as path liner instead - the route to the loo is treacherous... especially after a few glasses.
The wayleave has all been strimmed for the winter, and the firewood store extended to give us another dry-ish place to stack the logs in preparation for Christmas.

This weekend we took the bird boxes down for cleaning and to have metal plates put over the now-enlarged holes in an attempt to stop the woodpeckers from raiding the nests for chicks all summer long. The tawny box will be cleaned out in-situ in a couple of weeks time to be sure the last set of Stock Doves have vacated.

new fire store extension

We cleared out the big wooden storage boxes and made space for buckets of dry short logs for Cassius and even gave him another crackfiller round the back. My new ultra-powerful torch lit up the inside of the oven and showed it to be in quite a good state... no internal repairs needed at the moment.
The old drum BBQ that served as the ideal hostess trolley last yule, sadly hasn't fared so well and is now destined for the tip with its bottom now sporting a gaping rusty hole... so an alternative solution will have to be found - keeping all that food hot, and ready to serve together at the end of December is not an easy task.
We stayed over on Saturday night and had a good giggle in the Yardarm keeping warm by the firepit with nips of decent whiskey and a few bottles of vino.
Thank you to all who stayed and/or popped in to say happy birthday (or in Paul's case, slid in on his arse) - it was much appreciated - as were the pressies... so spoilt and so lucky to have such awesome friends. 

Another month zips by...

fungi in the kitchen

...and it seems the work is magically getting done behind our backs. Thank you to Simon and Helen for the awesome Rhodie clearance going on at the top of the wayleave. Holiday trip last week on the canal boats took most of the crew out for 2 weekends, but we will be back to help out with the burning this Samhain weekend - we promise!
The clay base needed a second session of puddling and smearing a couple of weeks ago, but I am hoping it will be all good for the yule time camp now without too much work.

The dam however is not fairing so well and frustratingly for all of us, but especially so for Flee we can do nothing more than keep plugging the holes and hoping it seals itself with the weight of the autumn rains and the debris that will no doubt we swept down into it.

Cassius base repairs

big hole in the clay base

It was back to puddling again last weekend as there are some repairs needed to the base that Cassius sits on - thankfully it's not so drastic that it has moved or cracked the oven itself, just the corner of the work surface has shifted slightly and so the clay holding it together has had to be removed and replaced.
So with a mix of 12.5kgs of clay, 30kgs of sharp sand and a few handfuls of sawdust I got stuck into puddling again. Cold at first but as soon as that familiar squelching phase got underway it was actually quite enjoyable and served as my daily exercise session since I had missed swimming again this weekend.
It will need another batch adding next week to fill the gaps and level off the top, but we made a good start anyway.
The rest of the gang continued clearing Rhodies either in the wayleave or over in the North East corner towards the Yew tree. It was lovely and sunny and if the stock doves are still sitting on eggs, then we have no excuses not to keep going - autumn might be here, but for woodland owners, that only increases the amount of work we can get done. bring on the bonfire season

whilst we were away working on a farm in Africa...

Simon and Helen were driving down to Rais and were shocked to see a huge JCB digger sitting in the middle of the wayleave and a big brown scar where it had been clearing brush. A closer look showed it was next door but one, with a group of half a dozen or so directing the activities from an ATV. It was difficult to see what they were up to but they were busy pretty much all day, at one point moving quite a bit of earth as well as clearing brush so perhaps they are digging a pond?
Having checked out the digger they went down to see how the dam was doing and were met by a scene of devastation .... there had obviously been a huge amount of rain at some point this week, and the dam looked like there had been a flash flood... all three pipes were blocked, one with a big bit of wood Simon could hardly lift out, and water has not only been going over the top but also through a really big hole in the dam (and another smaller one) next to the lower pipe.

As we were looking at the damage and clearing the blocked pipes we noticed it also seemed really shallow, even though the top of the lower pipe was not far above the water, and then we realised that the bank where Flee has been taking clay from has collapsed and there’s a load of new silt in the pond, almost up to the level of the pipe. They cleared out the blocked pipes but the holes will need Flees assessment to see what can be done.

Finally making a start on up-cycling the old campervan roof

The poor thing has been waiting patiently in the wood for some attention for almost a year now and so Tracey and I decided Bank Holiday was the weekend Bee's roof was getting a camouflage makeover....
  
It was also the weekend the bat box went up and Flee got back in the pond for some more clay puddling, Tracey refused wine in favour of bed (she was most definitely ill!) and Cassius produced yet more perfect pizzas.

The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wohlleben.

To give it it's full title... The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate-Discoveries from a Secret World.
Wow - what a book, and what a difference it made to an incredibly long and usually boring journey on the M1 north for work (Audible rocks!). Hidden and secret life indeed - my fascination with trees just reached a whole new level thanks to this book.
Not only are things explained in laymans terms, but with analogies and examples as well - I'm not sure I would have got through it as quickly as I did without it being expertly read to me through the Audible book app, but it's certainly one I would recommend for anyone with any interest in the outside world - particularly those who work directly with trees or silviculture - will make you think twice before you reach for the chainsaw in future!

mid May and the sun is shining

Deer are also on the run - saw a family grazing on the wayleave shortly before they bolted East. How they get through the thick bramble up there I don't know.
The leaves are starting to unfurl and cast dappled shade on the woodland floor - the bluebells smell gorgeous and it all feels like it's about to burst. Roll on bank holiday weekend.

Manic tits and time out

After a hellish week at work, far too little sleep and a few hours breaking my back in the garden, I decided a relaxing session with the Nikon was called for, so about 4pm I headed off to the sanctuary of the wood armed with my new Manfrotto travel tripod... determined to get in some practice before Zambia.
I was slumped on the kitchen side in the Yardarm lazily watching Forrest dash back and forth stashing peanuts in the roof when Tracey arrived... it seems she cannot stay away either. The place just has such a beautiful feel about it at the moment - everything green and clean, fresh and floral; you can't help but relax and chill out.
A couple of beers by the fire and the light was still filtering through the trees so we decided it wasn't quite wine o'clock - time for food instead. I emptied a sachet of pasta mugshot into a bowl and looked at it thinking "that just isn't going to cut it" so I emptied in another.... turns out one is more than enough, but of course the greedy pig that I am woofed the lot down along with 2 slices of bread and sat stuffed and uncomfortable for the remainder of the evening. Tracey on the other hand slung an open can of hotdog sausages on the fire and couldn't wait for them to even heat up before shoving three in a bap and woofing hers down to. When we finally found room for chocolate we headed into the Yardarm only to discover Forrest was also on a Saturday night binge and had eaten almost an entire pack of chocolate-coated raisins. Fatty Forrest left not a single raisin in the bag.

sweet chesnut

Owls flew over calling loudly, and a bee got trapped inside the oven, his buzz echoing round the dome making it sound like a humming fridge.
I actually had a really good night's sleep - nice and warm, not too much noise (even the woodpecker gave us a lie in this week), and after a quick breakfast and 3 cups of tea, we ambled over to the stream, east of the junction and spent an hour clearing the last rhodie in a particularly tangled and bramble-choked patch on the bank.

crane-fly snack

It seems my clumsy days are not behind me this week either.... I went to give a rhodie stump a good whack with the heel of my boot to loosen it, only to discover it was already dead and so it put up absolutely no fight causing my foot to plough straight through the stump and collide with my other foot instead. A full force heel kick to the ankle bone you're standing on hurts about the same as a whack to the bridge of the nose that's so hard it makes your nose fizz. Took my breath away for a moment. However, we managed to get the worst of the patch cleared and headed back down to the Yardarm for a bit of photography practise.

What better subjects than the pair of Great tits nesting in the box by the campfire. They were back and forth every 20-30 seconds or so, feeding the noisy chicks inside and removing poo bags every 3rd or 4th visit.. nice. We know they hatched at least 17 days ago but it could be more and since they fledge somewhere between 18 and 21 days, we figure it could be any day now. That said, the sound of practise wing-flapping was only heard once inside the box when the parents were both out, so it may still be a few days away.

200 pictures of tits taken going in, coming out, going in, coming out.... and I only manage to keep three! They are so fast. It was good practise though and got us both used to the weight of our lenses and eventually we got into the rhythm of their visits and were able to recognise the patterns of their behaviour - so here's a pair of great tits doing an outstanding job of feeding their young - both of them at it from dawn to dusk.
Ps: we think there are Stock dove's nesting in the Tawny owl box!

Beltane Bank Holiday Weekend

The twins can bake cake for us anytime!

Happy birthday Aunty Tracey.
Curry, cake and copious amounts of wine kept the chill off as Friday night was a little on the hutchy side, even for me.  It was Caroline's first night sleeping at the wood, so of course a lock-in at the Yardarm was called for... I think it was 3am by the time we actually went to sleep... and 5am when the Woodpecker starting drilling again... Grrrr. what was wrong with last year's nest hole eh? I mean... talk about fussy.
Saturday saw most of us clearing rhodies or roots and Flee moved up yet another level on the dam - very exciting.

just before the next pipe went on

I made some minor repairs to Cassius with fire cement (cheating I know, but I'm done digging clay and puddling in paddling pools). Flee fired him up mid afternoon and we mounted the thermometer in the door to give us some kind of guide to how different sized logs, and the frequency of loading them, were affecting things. This of course prompted another re-sort and replenishment of the firewood pile and a second stab at clearing the eyesore that is the log pile outside "Trap Number 2".
The repairs held and after a climatic 350 degrees celsius, pizza night was once again a success, with a thin and crispy taking about 10 minutes and a deep pan maybe 15.
Come Sunday morning, Cassius was still reading 105 degrees, the clouds had rolled in and unfortunately there was a barely noticeable flow of water coming from somewhere other than the outfall pipe in the dam, so Flee got in the pond to do some smearing and with any luck has bunged it up sufficiently so as not to cause a problem, but only time will tell.

The perfectly level overflow pipe

The girls worked through the lack of sleep clearing some more of the stream on the eastern side, drinking tea and ferrying barrow loads of chopped rhodie to the fire. Having burnt everything we gave him, Simon then worked on mark II of the forest shower, complete with an easy-turn winch for weaklings like me to be able to hoist the bucket high enough above me. I went with two thirds cold water and one flask of boiling water which turned out to be plenty enough water as I only used half the bucket, but perhaps not quite enough warmth. Flee went next using the remaining half bucket and adding another flask of boiling. So I suspect next time I will opt for half a bucket of cold and 2 flasks. Either way it was just as magical as the first time... there is something quite liberating about standing butt naked in the middle of a woodland taking a (much needed) shower. There are a few mods still needed; a towel rail and safe area to get dressed would be handy - After a precarious attempt at getting my trousers on slipping around on the platform in my wellies, I grabbed my clothes and ran back to the fire in the end which seemed like the safest option.

Forest Bucket Shower

Sunday had already been another clumsy day for me when I managed to whack myself in the face with the hooked end of a bungee cord. Not pleasant, but could have been much worse. Note to self: when a bungee cord is trapped under a log, don't stand above it and pull upwards... eejit.   I was clearing the tarp hide that was my very first makeshift one three years ago. It was only intended to be temporary, but irritatingly had become a dumping ground for old furniture destined for the fire (but never remembered).

Not anymore... Beltane (May day) is the festival of fire and we certainly made sure it was big enough to burn everything stashed under that tarp. Which was a good job, because the weather had turned changeable and we were in and out of the yardarm all evening trying to avoid rain showers before we eventually stole some embers and placed the firepit in the Yardarm with us. It was so cosy, we stayed there till the very early hours.

Monday started like every other morning of the weekend.... the sodding woodpecker drilling away at stupid o'clock. How big a hole does he need? but on Monday morning, there was another treat in store... the woodpecker was immediately followed by a wood pigeon relentlessly calling right above my tent. I love spring, really I do, but does it have to start so bloody early in the morning?
Drained of sleep, but still keen and smiling, we put up three new nest boxes, and went to take down Megan's box outside Tracey's tent. Last year the woodpeckers had drilled out the entrance hole to get at the chicks and we want to put a metal plate on it to make it safe and secure again. The problem is that I had put the box up last year in a slightly unconventional way (using a combination of strategically placed nails instead of a single screw) so Flee had a struggle to get the thing off without proper tools... a bit of wiggling, tugging and shaking and instead of the box coming free of the tree, a bird suddenly flew out of it straight past Flee's face!!! Bit of a shock - we were convinced it was not being used. Guilt ridden and inwardly upset, I stood watching the box from a distance to see if the bird ventured back. After about ten minutes, a Blue Tit landed on the front of the box, and immediately flew off again. I do hope all will be well. 

The makeshift wine warmer

In other news..... the green man is finally hanging somewhere in the wood where he can watch over the comings and goings, and Flee gets his fourth new flask. Yes I know, I should never be allowed near flasks again... I dropped it on the floor in the Yardarm smashing the glass and turning it into yet another oversized percussion instrument. In my defence, it was dark, it was late (or early however you want to look at it) and it was a seriously clumsy (alcohol-fuelled) weekend. Sorry Flee. x

Raised the level of the pond another 18 inches or so

downstream view of Flee's stonework

took 1h15m to fill the next section!

Dam construction continues whilst Tracey cleared the junction of the stream, east of secret bridge; a truly nasty job since the junction was thick with bramble-tangled-Rhodie.  Sunday we continued up along the banks of the northern spur hoping to reach the deer crossing but not quite making it that far.
Bluebells are up, but not quite out yet. Still a little early, but there does seem to be many more than were around last year.
The bracken is also heading up but much thinner than previous years. We will wait another few weeks before hand-pulling again, as it snaps too easily if still young and tender. Reassuring to know the method is working though.

Tarting up for the spring season

Ant's done is back in at the moment, so Good Friday he decided to wander the wood with his metal detector to try to keep active, but not do anything strenuous... his first find, within 20 minutes was what we think is an old coin, slightly larger than an old penny but difficult to tell what it is as it's so crusted in crud. The metal detector says it's non-ferrous and after some serious scrubbing with brasso, metal polish and a mixture of salt and vinegar we decided it was not going to get any easier to identify and gave up.
Whilst he was detecting, I set about clearing a new path from the back of the hive down to the secret (now not-so-secret) steps, stopping only to make a scorpion sculpture out of unearthed deer bones which I completely forgot to take a photo of.
Spent a long while collecting all the fallen sticks and twigs from the ground around the area before moving down into camp and doing the same, filling 4 barrow loads of dead-fall for the fire pile.
Saturday saw more sunshine, so we were back again - more dead-fall tidying, more metal detecting and Simon was still digging out Rhodie roots. The place is looking lovely and green - leaves starting to unfurl and the grass is creeping further and further into the wood from the wayleave.

The bracken is of course starting to show again, but in nowhere near the quantity that it was last year - hand pulling is definitely working.
I took the spade to the steps leading out of camp to safety them up a bit and Simon got the strimmer on the grass bench and fire area. I smeared the last of the clay onto Cassius to repair a few cracks and swept the Yardarm - it's all set for the big Beltane camp now.

Yellow skunk cabbage and purple toothwort

Purple toothwort

After another enjoyable owners brunch 'n' brew in lovely spring sunshine I decided it was high time I had a bit of a nosey at the neighbours woods, and since most of them were around, it seemed like the perfect day for it.

Yellow skunk cabbage

Started with the furthest away, Wend wood, and a beautiful walk along the stream with Becky and Jude to see the escapees from Nymans gardens; first up was the purple toothwort, a parasitic plant that attaches itself to the roots of willows, Alders and other damp woodland trees, and soon to follow was the impressive yellow skunk cabbage - in full glorious flower (and not-so-glorious scent), also a lover of damp woodlands and waterside spots, it's looks very much like our native Arum lily, just much bigger, bolder and altogether showy.
It was apparently brought to our lands over 100 years ago and is likely to have been carried more recently from Nymans or washed downstream from High Beeches to settle on the banks all along Wend's borders. However it arrived, it's definitely made itself at home and is a real stunner in this season.
We wandered back along to Fallow wood where Jules and Paul were busy erecting a deer fence to protect some newly planted fruit trees and gave them cause to take a break and put the kettle on. We were chilling in the sunshine when Thelma and Peter came ambling down to join us. Thelma kindly took us over to see Magister wood where they string hammocks and camp out overlooking a large pond.
Everyone's portion of Blackfold wood is so different and it was really nice to see what everyone is doing and how they are progressing.

Mobile phone photography mild rant #1

I absolutely adore my Nikon and long zoom lenses that lose me hours in the hide at the weekends, but I also adore playing with the incredibly impressive built-in camera in my Samsung S6 mobile phone. So easy, so small, so handy, and really good for fitting in tight spaces and reaching a different viewpoint where my Nikon cannot (well not without trampling a dozen or more bluebells anyway). Yet I am struggling with it when it comes to the actual taking of the picture.

Wood Sorrel outside my bedroom

I'm not the daintiest of people and even less so when it comes to high tech gadgets and gizmos, so for its' own protection my phone permanently lives inside a fairly sturdy leather case. This may be partially to blame for some of my struggles, and I fear my left-handedness may also play a part (the case of course is right-handed), but I will share with you the problems anyway... you may be able to help me.

Holding it Steady

Primroses on the Eastern stream

I can hold a 4kg, foot long, Nikon steady with two hands and still hit the shutter release to take a picture...no problem, but I cannot seem to hold 0.2kgs of pocket electronics steady with one hand (or even two) and still manage to take a picture - the supposedly simple act of tapping the screen with a finger that's ill-placed and clearly doesn't bend that way in any kind of controlled manner, causes the camera to move quite some distance from where I frame it. I tried using just one hand to hold it and the other to tap the screen, with similar results (how on earth do the selfie-obsessives do it?). Is this a common problem or have the younger generation evolved particular finger flexibility that I can only aspire to?

Switching from landscape to portrait
When I want to switch from portrait to landscape with my Nikon I simply rotate the camera and continue shooting.... but when I want to do the same with my phone, the phone rejigs the screen and moves the shutter button to a different place on the screen. To make matters worst it always seems to be to the end furthest from fingers that only had half a hope of reaching it in the first place. Grrrrr. (and don't get me started about turning the picture upside down - what's that all about?)

High speed shooting
If I want to take a number of pictures in quick succession on my Nikon, I have a dial on the top of the camera that I move from Single to Continuous. Easy. My phone seems to have a mind of its own and can often take 10 or 20 images of the same thing in one go when I really only need one and of course the reverse is also true.... can I work out how to take more than one image when I want to? not a chance. yes yes yes.... "RTFM" I hear you cry, but really? does anyone? aren't we supposed to be in the age of intuitive operation nowadays? My phone certainly thinks it knows what's best for me... just a shame I can't tell it I'm a left-handed photographer who has already learnt to be adaptive through living in a right-handed world and so has no desire to cope with an adaptive device as well.

Ooh that feels better. Serenity reigns again.

In a nutshell... it's an Oak tree

Mark Moffett/Minden Pictures

When I was a kid, growing up on a dairy farm in rural Sussex, I spent many hours around Oak trees; climbing them, slumped against them eating lunch, or face pressed against the bark counting to 100…. “coming ready or not” ….and then I’d curse my wellies and the stupid tree as I raced off to find my siblings slipping around on a sea of acorns beneath them like some comedy cat moment in Tom and Jerry.
I spent so long with these trees I can still remember a few of my favourites… the feel of the coarse bark on our legs as we climbed, and the even coarser lichen as it dropped into your wellies and spent the rest of the day itching its’ way into your socks. A tree-climbing slip invariably ended with a few more scratches, lichen under the finger nails and weird green powdery lines down your hands and knees.
But in the quieter times (after a sibling fallout or when hiding instead of being “it”) I would collect up a pocketful of acorns and sit lobbing them out into the field seeing how far I could throw them and hoping the squirrels wouldn’t find them so far away from the parent tree.
I used to think the cows and all their ground churning were responsible for burying the acorns and that squirrels simply dug about all day hoping to accidentally dig one up.
Something so small, with the potential to be something so huge – my head just couldn’t work it out back then and marvelled at it often – imagining a miniature Oak tree inside each shiny golden acorn – some of which were big enough to fill my fist at the time.
The acorn could either be eaten (by a Jay, a squirrel or whatever it is that makes those tiny holes in the side and eats it from the inside out), or it could by some miracle become an enormous tree; a home to the squirrel, the jay and a million of those tiny hole-makers.
Who decides which it is? The cunning squirrel and his ability to remember where he buried them? The cow and her ability to trample them into the ground at the fringes of the field? or the Jay and his inability to keep them in his beak as he flies off with them? Well this week it's me that decided as I removed from the fridge a collection of acorns I collected from Rais last Autumn and stuffed them in a sandwich bag full of compost. I hope to grow them on and plant them back at the wood in a few years time when they are strong enough to fend off the nibbling rabbits and deer. Those I planted last autumn are already 6 months old and strong enough to go outside in my garden now - I'm interested to see whether those planted in the Spring will catch up over the summer, or whether they will always look 6 months younger.

The balance of Ostara

For those that don't know, tomorrow is the spring Equinox (or Ostara) also called the "vernal" equinox. So out of curiosity I looked up vernal in my latin dictionary... the closest I could find was the word "vernula" meaning 'young home-born slave'. I'm not sure I can match springtime with the word slave, but I'm certainly a slave to the spring... so much to do and so much to anticipate. But to me it's all so worth it - a single humble primrose is enough to put a smile on my face, especially after the black and white world of winter in the UK.
The spring equinox is another point in the year when day and night are of equal length. Daylight is balanced with darkness and spring begins. As it would happen, balance is also something I've been forced to consider lately - my job was in danger of taking over my life and so I put up my slack line today. Taut between two trees in the wood by the hive, to not only give me the opportunity to get some strength back in my jelly legs after a winter spent on the sofa, but also as a reminder that I need to find better balance in my life. They call it "work-life balance" but if you thoroughly enjoy what you do for a living, I think it's not such a fitting phrase. I prefer to think of it as just life balance... we each get 24 hours a day; 8 to work, 8 to sleep and another 8 to do with as we choose. I have forgotten to balance these things lately and this time of the year is perfect to redress it.
So after a heavy Saturday and Sunday morning digging and tidying up my garden at home, I headed off to the wood to do much the same there and was quietly smiling to myself when I pulled up alongside two other vehicles of friends who had arrived before me and had chosen to do the same.
Flee was keen to make some progress on the dam and recreate the pond we briefly enjoyed last year, and Simon, myself and Tracey got stuck into chopping and burning an immense pile of Rhodies to clear it before the birds decided it would be a great place to nest.
Our reward was a lip-tingling chilli soup made by the domestic goddess Tracey and a short burst of warm sunshine.
Tracey and I took a walk around marvelling at the remains of a pigeon eaten by a hawk and an enormous tree root that had left the ground and tumbled down the bank to wedge itself across the stream, upturned and topped with a huge chunk of sandy soil making it look much like an 8 foot spider on it's back with a serious orange pot belly, but making the perfect natural bridge.
Next weekend Flee plans to raise the level of the pond to the second overflow pipe and, all being well, the extra weight of the water will test the new dam, but not damage it. Slowly slowly catchee monkey, (patience is another lesson I've yet to master, but Rais is thankfully a great teacher).

Inspiration for life....

'To enter a wood is to pass into a different world in which we ourselves are transformed.' ~ Roger Deakin

Misty January

"Alba" the pigment-free pheasant

Continued clearing Rhodies and bramble on the wayleave yesterday - attempting to make space for a patch of meadow and possibly somewhere to grow more food. The wayleave runs north-south, and so gets the sun pretty much all day, which will be great for growing native fruits, nuts and berries. We cannot plant trees underneath, but we can certainly plant bushes - just need to work out a way to keep the rabbits and deer at bay until established.

New feeder "pockets" on the
fallen branch

After ferrying the hacked foliage over to the fire area, we moved up to the hive to make a few mods to the feeders and test out a method of getting the trailcam up high enough to monitor the Tawny owl box at a safe distance.
It was about this time that the shooting started - it sounded incredibly close and so I marched off thinking to myself how I might politely tell them to bugger off.  As I got closer it became clear they were in fact right on the border between ours and Bob and Rita's, so I suggested they might not have permission and they assured me they wouldn't be coming any closer, with a wave across the stream I trudged back to the hive. Only one more round to go they said and they would be done. We could hear the beaters coming down through the wood from the East and saw the odd bird break cover and make a dash for it across the wayleave towards the waiting line of guns. As the beaters got closer and closer the last remaining birds did the smart thing and all took off together, flying towards Rais on various flight paths with me stood beneath them, willing them to make it to safety. Most lived to see another day; only 23 days to go and shooting season will be over which gives us seven months of relative peace and quiet.

Male Great Spotted Woodpecker

Today's second session in the hive after some minor adjustments...
The light started better than it was last Sunday, but got progressively worse again throughout the afternoon. Thankfully the temperature was much better and I was able to sit without the heater on for quite some time.
I was also fortunate enough to see our albino pheasant again today. I saw her yesterday, on the run from the guns - thankfully today she let me shoot her with my lens instead.
Sadly I think one of my trail-cams has captured its' last image as I cannot seem to get it working again, despite drying it out and putting fresh batteries in it - at least this Great Tit found a use for it.

trailcam tit

Also saw a second tree creeper this weekend, fired a few shots off, but they were nothing special - it spends most of its' time with its' beak in the bark, so I have a number of shots of the back of it's head but not much more. Still a very pretty LBJ and one of my favourites.
In fact today was a day full of "almosts" ... I almost got a Nuthatch taking off, I almost got a woodpecker taking off and I almost got a Great Tit taking off - I'm going to blame the poor lighting of course - permitting me only a sluggish shutter speed, but it was good fun trying and of course there's always next time.