Photographs by Peter Loud

Garden Wildlife Photos


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Grey Heron, Ardea cinerea
Moorhen feeding chick
I don't regard myself as a wildlife photographer. They are a specialist breed with expensive long lenses and lots of patience. I have 3, 20+ year old, assorted, 70-210mm lenses costing between £40 & £100 from eBay.

Moorhen chicks

This is one of a brood of 7. Within 10 days they were reduced to 4 by a greedy pike, hungry heron or a local cat.

In 2012, there were 4 broods of chicks,
None of them survived more than a week, I think it was a pike that got them.

Pike
I was sitting in my garden having a cup of tea, then these appeared in front of me.
I see them most years in late March or early April.

Pike

The heron hangs around when there are new moorhen chicks or ducklings, but I've never seen it eat one.





Grey Heron, Ardea cinerea

Newly hatched cygnets, 2010, and 2011 below.

In 2010 there were 8 eggs, 7 hatched, one cygnet disappeared in the first week.

In 2011 there were 9 eggs, 9 hatched. One cygnet disappeared in the first week, another after 3 weeks.





Newly hatched cygnets, 2012.

In 2012 there were 8 eggs, all hatched, but after two weeks, five cygnets suddenly disappeared.
I have no idea what happened to them.

Male Swan, Cob.

Female Swan, Pen.

Swan attacks goose


Canada Goose









An Ordinary Bumble Bee
I don't have any specialist gear for taking close-ups.
I just used my 70-210mm tele. lens at max. zoom and minimum focusing distance.

I don't know which bee this is :-(



A Hoverfly, (syrphid)

Common Tern
A regular summer feeder at the marina, but is difficult to photograph, they won't keep still.







Signal Crayfish, Pacifastacus leniusculus
Yes, this was taken in my garden. There are crayfish in the marina.

Beans from my garden

Aquilegia
Green Shield Stink Bugs, (Palomena Prasina, family Pentatomid).

This week, (Sept.'12), I bought some extension tubes which allow me to get higher magnification for these flies and bugs. My apologies if I am over-doing the Stink Bugs. I have a good selection of water birds in my garden, but I have very, very few small creepy-crawlies. These stink bugs are great, they don't fly off, they hang around the same patch on my beans. I almost know them by name ;-)

I was puzzled by the different stink bugs that I saw, then one day, as I waited for my kettle to boil,
I looked at my beans and caught a stink bug moulting. A day later the new bright green bug had returned to black & green.






Carp, 2012, Those leaves are about 25cm x 15 cm.

Just ordinary ducklings
Nine ducklings were hatched, within 10 days all of them had disappeared,
eaten by the voracious pike, a hungry heron, or a local cat.
Occasionally there are other birds around, but I don't have any good photos of them.

Tufted Duck

Mandarin Duck

I nearly forgot about these fish photos taken in 2004 on a little 3Mp camera.

Carp

Carp, with neighbour who fished, 2004

African Red Tailed, Grey Cockatoo,
Yes, this was in the garden, someone must have lost their £1,000 pet parrot.





Cockerel
From a friend's garden. I think that comb would be described as a strawberry comb.

Long eared owl
No, it wasn't in my garden, it was in Northumberland.
I don't have an appropriate wildlife webpage to put it on :-(

More wildlife, that wasn't in my garden.
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