Category Archive: ornithology

Wildlife Highlights 2021

greenwoodpecker

Title photo: Green Woodpecker I know the year’s not over yet but I figured I’d update my blog with some of the wildlife highlights from this year. This is by no means all the animals or birds I encountered, or even photographed/filmed, but the ones presented are some of the more memorable. Probably the most […]

Autumn Came Way Too Soon

redhindfawnbehind

I don’t know where the last 5 months went, since the start of the pandemic and quarantine, but the time has flown by. This Summer we had 3 continuous months of hard unrelenting rain which caused huge mould problems in the house. We occasionally had a warm couple of days, around 30 C, but nothing […]

Quarantine Violators….

redfoxvixen

As soon as the world went like this: we packed up and bugged out to the village house. While we were planning to move there over Easter for the holidays, we decided to move early. This was both a plus and a minus as, while the house allows us more space and there’s less people […]

Another Year Passes, My 21st in Slovakia

edwardotoolelesnicahill

Our lives out here are completely affected by the seasons and the various events and changes which happen within them, far more so than if we lived in an urban environment. Autumn brings with it the crazy rush to get wood in and prepared for winter, both day and night Red Deer stags cry out […]

Diversity – First Spring Weekend 2019

redsquirreleating

On an extremely spontaneous impulse we decided to stay the weekend at the house for the first time since leaving it on New Year’s Day. It’s been a long, harsh winter this year and having a couple of days of heat and blue sky was too irresistible. Unfortunately, the interior of the house is still […]

Black Woodpecker

blackwoodpecker2

This evening I’m a happy man as I finally managed to photograph the annoyingly elusive black woodpecker (Dryocopus martius). These birds, along with the golden oriole I photographed earlier this year, have been tauting me for decades. Similarly, neither species of bird seems to sit still long enough  to be photographed. They’re crap photos I […]

Owls and Martens

uralowl

Today I went to check on the house and got to drive through some pretty thick snow. Vlochka, my Discovery, really has her use sometimes. On the way home I spotted a Ural owl just sitting on a branch about twenty feet from the road. For once, the sky was vaguely blue and the bright […]

Harsh temperatures inbound

village church in snow

I really thought we’d get away with a mild winter this year and thus didn’t bother switching off my water. After seeing this week’s forecast, with temperatures dropping below minus 20, we headed out to the house to switch everything off and drain the pipes. It never saves everything – there’s always the odd tap […]

The end of summer

doublerainbow

A double rainbow… Summer just wasn’t long enough this year. In fact, life isn’t long enough. There are so many things to do and see, and places to go. Autumn is being a real let down with night time temperatures around zero, meaning it looks like we’re just going to go straight into winter. I […]

All creatures great and small

stormsunset

Summer is finally here and with it comes a selection of animals that we don’t see at other times of the year. Sadly, even after a horrifically long and cold winter, we’ve only had a few hot days thus far. Hopefully, the weather will pick up at some point. Probably the most noticeable summer visitor […]

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