A Hedge of Herons and Other Birds I've Seen Lately

 Usually, on this blog, I put on videos of woodland animals. Today I will mostly put on some aquatic bird videos and pictures. Another change is that I have not put out a camera trap for this. All these have been recorded with a different camera.

First I shall put some brilliant heron footage on. Grey herons are one of my very favorite animals, so I was very pleased to get this footage. 

The plural for a group of herons is a hedge, hence the title. There are still more herons to come, but let's have a quick look at a cormorant.

Cormorants dive to catch fish, so they are often seen with their wings spread out, trying to dry them.

The next bird I am going to show you is probably the best-looking bird ever to be on the blog. This video shows two great crested grebes building their nest.

Here are some other aquatic birds:

A Mute Swan

A Moorhen

A Coot

Greylag Goose

Mallard Duck

That final picture was an extreme close-up of a mallard duck's head.

Finally, we have more brilliant heron photos and videos.

Here is a heron roosting in a tree.

                                       
And that is all the herons for today. But not all the birds for today.

A while back when we got an owl on the camera trap I said there would be buzzards in the next post. I know it has been a while since I posted, but I did record some badgers. Sadly though the footage got deleted on the computer. Anyway here is a great video of two buzzards flying very near to each other.

 

Here are some photos of buzzards.

That is all the footage I have had. One final thing is that I had a question about whether badgers are prey for foxes. The answer is no, as they prefer to keep away from each other. Sometimes though when they do have a fight it is most likely the badger will win. They are much larger whereas foxes are much smaller. Thanks for the question and if anyone does have a question ask in the comments. 

Thanks for reading!  

The Animal I Wanted the Most

 This week we have had a great selection of animals. It wasn't your usual badgers of foxes, (although we did catch a fox's ear) in fact it was something that I wanted the most that we had never caught. And to top things off, we caught an amazing video of a roe deer! I shall save the best until last so we'll start with a squirrel.

Next up we have a fantastic roe deer video and picture. If you remember we got a herd of deer last spring. I thought they were just passing through but perhaps not if we got one in the winter. This one wasn't in a herd though so unless the rest of the herd were behind the camera I don't know where they were.

We got a video of a fox's ear as well. It's not a great video though.

And now the best video and picture of this week (and of this year and in my top 5 of all time) the animal  I wanted to catch the most... a Tawny Owl. I have wanted to catch one for so long and here is one perched on a branch at 1 o'clock in the morning.

If you look in the top left corner you can see the shape of a tawny owl.

And that is all we have caught on the camera trap this week. In the next couple of days I will make a post on two buzzards me and my dad managed to film. Anyway that's all for now, so bye!

Badger Banger

 This week we have an absolute badger banger. We got so much footage of badgers and other creatures.

So here is a brilliant set of photos! 

I love it when the badger comes right up and sniffs the camera! Here's another video.

On the night of the day we put it out, we also caught a fox. In fact we got plenty of foxes - don't worry though, I'm not done with the badgers yet :).

On Monday we got a pheasant which is something we don't often catch. You can tell it's a male as they have much more brighter colours compared to the brown, dull females.

Now we have even more badgers.

This one was going back and forth.

Here you get a good view of it's bum.

This one was foraging.

And this is an excellent video.

Speedy badger

On Saturday morning we got another badger!

Now some photos

More foxes

Squirrel

And that's the best of the wildlife we caught this week.

We have recently got 3,000 views on the blog so I will do a special post soon showing some of the best footage we have got. But that's everything now, so goodbye!

A week of Winter Wildlife

Last Sunday -when I found the feathers- we put the camera trap out. We picked it up earlier today and we got quite a lot. It has also snowed here recently and I found fox paw prints in the snow on the way to picking it up. That had already got me excited. At the moment it is fox mating season as well. So enjoy one week of winter wildlife!

Sunday

The day we put it out we only caught a squirrel.

Monday

Like I said earlier it is fox mating season and I don't think these 2 foxes got on very well. Watch what happens after this one walks behind the tree.

Tuesday

Well Tuesday was the best day of the week. We got plenty of fox footage and great quality as well.

Here is one taking the fatball we left out for it. This was at 5 in the morning.

This one gave the camera the death stare.

This one was caught mid jump.

At 10am we caught a fox in broad daylight.

Now some videos

On Tuesday it started to snow.

Wednesday

More foxes

Thursday

Snow Crow

Friday

Finally on Friday we caught a badger. Not our best badger, but still a badger.

And that is it for the wildlife this week. Hope you enjoyed!

Battle of the Bird of Prey

 I had just put the camera trap out ( it is out at the time of writing this, in the spot where we caught some deer) and was walking home along the canal when I saw some feathers. My first thought was buzzard but I knew it could have been a tawny owl as well.

Here are the three feathers - but they haven't been lost naturally as they are attached to flesh!

What bird did these feathers belong to?

Like I said earlier I reckon these are buzzard feathers. The only other bird would be a tawny owl. There are plenty of buzzards in the area but there are still a few owls. Here is a comparison between the feathers.

Tawny owl feather

Buzzard feathers

Both are quite similar and those are the best images I could find but the feathers here could be from different areas of the bird hence them looking different to the ones I have. But like I said I am sure it was a buzzard.

What happened?

My guess is that the bird got in a fight with another animal and a little chunk of it got torn off. I reckon it was earlier this morning before people started walking along the canal as there was still blood on the end of the feather. It may have been resting but then got attacked by another animal. It then flew off still losing it's feathers since it was injured.

Suspects

My main suspect is a red fox.

They have been known to attack buzzards mainly to scare them off.

Pictures taken by me :-)

The fox probably bit into the buzzard, not killing it but injuring it and scaring it off.

Also the other week I found lots of pigeon feathers together in the woods. I think a fox got to that too.

So that's what I think happened to the bird which these feathers belong to. What do you think the animals involved in this fight were? And do you want to see my entire feather collection?

Please say what you think in the comments :-)

Top 5 Favourite Photos/videos of 2022

 Happy new year! 

I know I haven't been uploading for a while (my camera trap got taken in Nottinghamshire but I now have a new one)  but I will now be uploading regularly again!

Anyway these are my top 5 favourite photos/videos of 2022!

5.

Bumble bee

I love this video as the bee is so close and you can really hear it!

4.

Elusive fox 

Although its not the greatest fox video we've had this year it is certainly my favourite.

I love the way it's sneaking around and that's why it makes it into my top 5. This could also be the same 

fox at night?

3. Pheasant

We usually get foxes and badgers on the camera trap (which I really don't mind!) but its always nice to get something different. Like in this case we got a fantastic pheasant strutting around the woods.

2. Baby badger

I really couldn't decide out of the final 2 which one should come first. Anyway in place number 2 we have the cutest baby badger.

.

It's also one of our only badgers in daylight.

1. Roe deer

The number one spot of the year goes to the roe deer.

It was so unexpected as the wood isn't huge and deer often like big forests!

So those are my favourite photos/videos of the year. Stay tuned to find out what else we'll catch!

Bison are back!

 One century ago, European bison were declared extinct in the wild. But thanks to rewinding projects they now live across Europe one again! But up until July 2022 there had been no bison in Britain. But now, a little herd of them are roaming free in Kent! 

Bison being reintroduced to England