Remember this picture from last month? Some people have asked how many rings are there?

Well if you look at the image on the right you should be able to count them for yourself.

By our reckoning there are in the region of 180 - 200 rings. How many do you make it?

As I was about to start on a walk around the farm looking for subjects for this months nature page I had the feeling that I was being watched.

Looking up I found that I was being eyed up by this kestrel.

Of the several birds of prey that can be found at Greenheyes, the kestrel is one of the more commonly observed of them. normally they can be seen in a hovering flight as they look for prey on the ground.

Talking of hovering.

The humble hover fly takes a bit of beating.

Our little friend here was expertly keeping its position above this buttercup despite the flowers erratic movements in a strong breeze.

 

Another bird that had is eye on me as I walked around was this Collared Dove.

These birds are members of the Pigeon family. This one is probably a young immature one as it lacks the distinctive black "collar" found around the neck of a mature bird.

Our next picture is also of a member of the pigeon family in this case it is a Wood pigeon.

This pigeon can be found individually or in quite large flocks.

They are not Phil's favorite bird especially when they are helping themselves to his newly planted crops.

I must mention that I was not alone on my wanderings. this month I had a rival photographer in the shape of 8yr old James who came out with me using my old digital camera.

When it comes to fieldcraft I think he is a natural at it and he is able to get remarkably close to wildlife without disturbing it.

The first of his pictures on the right captures a couple of young rabbits "kissing".

 

In this next picture He captured a robin as it paid a visit to the rabbits.

 

 

 

 

Finally he closed in a little further on the rabbits and took this closesup of this young rabbit which apparently was completely undisturbed by his presence.

If you want a little challenge why not see how close you can get to a rabbit (a wild one that is) without disturbing it. It is not quite as easy as you may think.

Continuing with his photography of young animals James managed to photograph these images of a young Blackbird (left) and a fledgling robin (right)

 

 

 

 

 

I managed to restore a little of my pride in my photography by capturing this image of a squirrel.

 

 

 

Finally our last photograph captured a swallow in flight as it looks for insects.

If you look in the bottom right of the image you may see a small white circle. any guesses what it is?

A couple of clues its not a flaw on the image, and it's not a fly :-)

See you next month.

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