This Green woodpecker (Picus viridis) always taunts me when I walk along the old road near the house. Every time I try to take a photo it hides behind a tree trunk and then flies on to the next tree when I try to get closer. It basically acts like a squirrel. We don’t get […]

Probably, out of all my hobbies and interests, cataloguing the creatures which live around my house ranks the highest. As a kid I used to keep a daily diary of what birds and animals I’d seen and often draw one of them. Now I have cameras and trailcams but the principle is still the same. […]

After yesterday’s multiple hard-going walks, this morning’s was at a much slower pace. The sun was out but the temperature fluctuated between too warm and too cold, meaning having to don and remove outer garments often. The meadows are filled with bird song and presented the opportunity for a few photographs (there should also be […]

Today we (my wife, eldest son and myself) went for a very pleasant walk through the forest at the top of the hill behind the house. The journey took several hours and was quite hard going due to the steep climb on an unused forester’s trail, but the forest looked stunning with flowers growing everywhere. […]

This is the weekly round up for the beginning of May. This morning the sun was shining so I hopped on my motorbike, Feisty, and set off for my village house. Once there, I donned my bush garb and traipsed across the now overgrown meadow to go check on my trailcam – I had a […]

This is the first photo from my new camera – a Canon SX412HS. It’s a photograph of the UNESCO-protected wooden church in Svidnik skanzen, Northeast Slovakia. I took the photo from my office window, approximately 1 kilometre (perhaps a little more) away. The photo required a lot of filtering due to it being quite bleached. […]

This weekend seems to have revolved around hard-to-differentiate bird species. While out setting my game camera in a creek bed, I had this little Marsh Tit (Poecile palustris)/Willow Tit (Poecile montanus) keep me company. I personally think it was a Marsh Tit.

I was stunned to see this harrier flying around while out walking behind the house. I’ve never seen one here before. I’m unsure whether it’s a Montagu’s Harrier (Circus pygargus) or a Hen Harrier (Circus cyaneus) as it has identifying marks which associate (and refute) it with both. The black above-wing line makes me lean […]

Terrible photo as she’s about 1 kilometre away, at dusk and taken with my damaged-lens Canon SX700HS on full zoom (hopefully a new camera will come this week). Initially we spotted her as a large black lump crossing a field while going on our usual daily walk. It’s the first boar I’ve seen this year, […]

I’m really starting to get disappointed with what I’m capturing on trailcam and it looks like I’m going to have to set it up in a different area. Like I said in an earlier post, I might as well have it running in a Lincolnshire garden. Where are all the big beasties? I see enough […]