Well I hope you are sitting comfortably as this is going to be a long blog post.....
If any of you read my posts on a regular basis then you might remember what I said at the end of my last one..... I'll leave that there for a moment...
Anyway back to today. I spent a good couple of hours in the back garden early this afternoon.
Red Kites are a familiar sight where I am, and I saw three but had the wrong lens on to really capture one of them that well.....
Because I had the macro camera lens on I had much better luck with these three hoverflies below. Species name under each photo....
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| Episyrphus balteaus |
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| Merodon equestris |
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| Platycheirus ambiguus |
The back garden has a small stream running into a pond, and by sitting very still and quietly near the pool, eventually some of the birds came down for a drink.
First up were the newly fledged House Sparrows....
Next were the noisy chattering young Starlings....
followed by an adult Goldfinch....
Another critter in the garden, but not such a welcome one, was this brightly coloured Lily Beetle...
Early evening I was pottering around in the lockdown loftroom when I happened to pop my head out of the window and saw the Vixen was already out in the clearing, along with three of the cubs. It took just a couple of minutes to put the Big Bertha lens on my camera and I started firing off a few shots....
The vixen then moved further down the field, which she does quite frequently. The further down she comes, the better my photos are, so I continued taking pics, focusing more on her than the cubs who were playing in the clearing still....
I was so focused on the vixen that I didn't realise she had company until they were both within my 'camera eye'...…. the young buck Muntjac was out as well !!
I'm not sure what I was expecting to happen next. When I first became aware there were both a muntjac and a fox in the field a few weeks ago, I witnessed the fox and muntjac 'bump noses' but that was the old buck Muntjac with the bad leg, and the fox cubs werent out of the den at that time. The deer and the fox were obviously used to each other and happy to share the space.
But this is the younger buck Muntjac that has only been seen in the field the last few days. What would the vixen do with the cubs still out ? What would the muntjac do ?
You can tell a lot of what a wild animal is feeling by watching its behaviour. I've often seen the vixen flatten her ears if she is alarmed or if one of the cubs has played around too much. And most of my sightings of a muntjac have been when they've been alarmed and run off flashing the underneath of their tail, which is white... so to see the deer begin to run off wasn't that much of a surprise.....
but then he stopped...
and I realised two of the fox cubs had moved down from the clearing and were right in front of him.....
When I saw the vixen languidly start to groom herself, I knew there was no danger to either the cubs nor the muntjac....
The cubs just carried on playing but did keep a bit of distance between themselves and the deer. But to get to their mum, one of them was full of bravado and walked straight past the muntjac...
It then hid in the long grasses, and I couldn't pinpoint where it was.
Mr Muntjac then wandered over to the vixen, all calm and looking very inquisitive, and I managed to get these photos below.....
It felt like the longest few minutes of my life and when the muntjac eventually wandered off, I realised I was holding my breath !
The cub then re-emerged and stood by mum as the muntjac walked away calmly towards the clearing....
How magical !
I just wish as always, that my photos were clearer, but I'm happy with these for record shots !!
And if anyone is wondering what I wrote at the end of my last blog post, it was …..
"It would be fantastic if I could one day get a photo of a muntjac and a fox cub in the same frame"
Keep well everyone and stay safe
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