Here are a few photos we took on a sunny day in early March, after weeks of rain. The morning started out frosty but as soon as the sun came out the garden was full of bees busily collecting pollen … in fact, they were so laden with pollen they could hardly fly. As a […]
The Tawny Owls have started to incubate two eggs on the nest above the barn door. The two eggs were laid in Early March 2020 and should take about 28 days to incubate, so we expect to see hatching towards the end of March. The female does all of the incubating, and is periodically fed […]
We have decided that we are going to focus on squeezing as much as we can out of entry level DSLRs and budget accessories. All the images you see on this site have been taken either on Greg’s Canon 650D; pictured), which he has had for years, or Cara’s EOS 200D. We can achieve some […]
One way to improve your macro capabilities without breaking the bank buying expensive lenses, is to invest in some extension tubes. We opted for the Viltrox extension tubes illustrated, which rolled in at around 20-25 Euros. The effect of these tubes is to change the focal length of you lens in way that enables you […]
I am a geologist, so I like shiny rocks and crystals! Although having been a professional geologist for overthirty years, I didn’t really start collecting fossils and crystals until very recently, after a chance visit to a mineral shop in Warsaw. Once the bug had bitten, I needed to get out in to the field […]
The intervalometer is a great bit of kit that enables you to trip the shutter release wirelessly, or set up repeated shots at set intervals. I have used this shutter release to remotely shoot birds on the bird feeder, suing a tripod. I have also used the intervalometer to take multiple shots of the milky […]
The floral diversity and associated insect and small mammal populations make our terrain a great location for reptiles. We see plenty of snakes, which are dominated by yellow-collared grass snakes and great western whipsnakes (up to 1.5m). We also commonly see adders, one of which bit our dog a few years back. The first snake […]
We were very surprised to see this fellow turn up on the trail cam one night. He was stood looking over the fence in to the garden. I showed the picture to Christian, the local vet, who is a keen naturalist, who told me he “knew this deer”. I said,”yes, it’s a red deer”. He […]
We have had Little Owls nesting in the bedroom roof-space for several years. In 2019 we decided to install a nest box to try and encourage them to move out. They make so much noise feeding in the middle of the night! Very soon we had a pair investigating the box. They seemed to like […]
In 2019 we installed our first Barn Owl nest box. It was a tremendous success! Six chicks hatched and kept the parents very busy with feeding. During the early days the parents were bringing in 25-30 voles every night. The adult would feed the first chick to grab the food. It would appear that the […]
