Topic: Wildlife

A list of articles tagged with 'Wildlife'.
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The Mounts, Summer 2019

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Gallery published by Richard Goodwin

In July the birds go quiet and birdwatchers become butterfly watchers.  The Mounts are an old clay quarry, rubbish dump, school playing fields, and now a sort of unofficial park where people walk their dogs among the overgrown grass. The numerous thistle flowers usually bring in the butterflies at this time of year, and in the good weather they didn't disappoint - although there were far fewer speckled woods this year, we saw lots of painted ladies.  The latter we usually see one every couple of year; this time we saw them so often we could tell they must have bred.  And as well as the usual meadow browns, gatekeepers and commas, we saw a small copper which is apparently quite rare!

Hedgehog

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Gallery published by Richard Goodwin

The stair climbing one is my favourite!

These lovely little creatures are getting rarer - but luckily we still seem to have some coming in to the garden for food.

Me!

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Gallery published , updated by Richard Goodwin

Back before social media was a thing, someone said it was vain to have a page with my pictures on. But now we have Twitter and Facebook and Instagram so who's laughing now? Now I guess the question is more: why do you still have a personal website?  Well at least it gives me a place to back up my photos that I actually have some control over.

I'm more comfortable behind the lens than in front, but a while back I started trying to keep a current picture on my site.  Before social media it was a lot harder to know what people looked like, which was a problem if you ever wanted to meet in real life.  Or just were really, really nosey.

New home in Nottingham

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Gallery published , updated by Richard Goodwin

(Commentary is from when this page was put up in a private section to show my friends my new house.  Pre-Facebook, obvs.)

You know you're in for trouble when you get a 'phone call from your lawyer starting "You know how you were supposed to complete on your house today...?"

Foxes

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Gallery published by Richard Goodwin

A selection of fox pics and videos from my back garden

Ladybird Hatch

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Gallery published by Richard Goodwin

This appears to be a mass of Harlequin Ladybirds emerging from their larval stage en masse, using the wooden handrail and brick wall at a local college. Most were static, or walking around with their wings out (drying?); some seemed to be gathering in the cracks between fence and posts.

Not brilliant shots, as they were taken quickly with my point and click camera with no flash, no tripod in low light, and stripes on some of the images since I got water on the back of the camera.

Death of a Tree

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Gallery published by Richard Goodwin

So one stormy Saturday morning a tree near my house blew down into someone's front garden.  When a neighbour 'phoned the council the lady who answered said that they were a bit busy, so she didn't know when they'd be able to turn up.

About an hour later two lorries rocked up.  In the poring rain they had the tree down, cut into smaller pieces, and in the back of the lorry ready to ship out in about another hour.  They even left a bit of a stump so the kids could still use it as a goalpost.  Makes you wonder how fast they are when they're not busy!

Attenborough, June 2007

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Gallery published by Richard Goodwin

Spent Father's Day taking Dad around Attenborough. Lots of young birds - Reed Warblers and Whitethroats, Tree Sparrows, Great Tits, Coot, Moorhen, Mute Swan and Mallard all got photographed.

There were also a large number of Banded Demoiselle dragonfly-type creatures around; enough that we saw a sparrow catch (and drop) one, one got caught and eaten by a spider, and we found just the wings of another on the path. Mating Ladybirds and a bunch of Peacock Butterfly caterpillars, and some strange cricket-type critters, were amongst the other insects we saw, not counting all the flies and midges.

Attenborough, May 2007

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Gallery published by Richard Goodwin

Just a walk on a sunny day, and everywhere around were young birds...