Favourite pics

 Having very little to photograph lately I have been going through my files (all 30,000 or so) and picked out these that I don't think they have been seen before. The barn owl is one that I photographed on a regular basis for about 5 years.

The fox and I new each other well. 10 years ago I found it, a tiny little black thing, obviously lost wandering and howling so I steered it towards its den. I saw it on many occasions after that and he just accepted me as the norm and I got many pictures of him.

 A fisherman friend of mine told me that where he goes fishing there is lots of wildlife around. He told me of an osprey that drops in for a meal, I never saw the osprey but got the shock of my life when this badger wandered past.

 At my old home this pair of hedgehogs used to pop round every evening for a bite to eat. They became quite trusting and rarely ran away, in fact on one occasion one took food from my hand. I have hedgehogs at my new home but they are not so friendly.

I have taken many pictures of kingfishers over the years. This one is one of my favourites, she would sit just a few feet away knowing I was there but ignoring me.

Nuthatch in its typical pose. Another of my favourite birds.

This osprey visited Horsham on a couple of occasions saving me the trouble of traveling to Wales to photograph them.

This is a young peregrine. I discovered the nest at the time I had a Welsh licence. The nest was on the opposite side of a ravine which was about 30m deep with a river at the bottom. The bird was only about10m from me. I had two years photography at this nest site.

This was a lucky shot of a red kite. I was standing in the shadow of a building and the kite didn't see me till the last minute.

This is a rare leucistic red kite. I have only come across 3 birds in the British Isles. This one I photographed for about 10 years. Leucisism is a lack of melanin which is the pigment that puts the colour into hair and feathers. These birds are not known to breed.

Curlew

 I have been scouring the countryside looking for wildlife of interest and have had little luck. So deciding to stretch my legs a bit I headed of down to the coast to a place I know where I would have better luck. What disappointment, all I could find was this solitary curlew too far away to get any decent shots.

Must try harder as my teacher at school would say.

Evening patrol

Still nothing to shout about locally. I go out late afternoon on most days and tour the local patches but there is very little to see. On the way home I call in to see how the peregrines are, as you can see they are both healthy and well fed. The youngsters have long gone although one was seen nearby a couple of days ago.

The foxes are regular visitors to my garden which gives me a use for my trail camera's. The hedgehogs too come in just after dark for their supper. I put down peanuts and mealworms, which the hedgehog loves leaving the peanuts for the fox.

Fallow deer

I went for my usual evening walk in our local woodland still looking for the badger set that I know exists somewhere nearby when I came across the fallow deer that I met the other night. It was quite dark and I wasn't sure that I could get a good image but I took the chance and this was the outcome. I used my 500m F4 lens with an ISO800 setting and with a little help from photoshop I was pleased with the result.

Ghostly animal

Have'nt had much luck with the camera lately but I am still playing with low light shots. This evening I met this fallow deer and we stood and stared at each other for several minutes until he heard the click of the camera shutter and decided that was enough.