After yet another successful year on the Odds & Sods thread, initially started I think by Hazy, it might be wise to kickstart the 2023 thread off.
Thank you to those who have contributed to last years thread, and there has been very interesting odds and sods in "Odds & Sods 2022" that aren't enough to place into a dedicated thread, which you can look back on the following link:
https://community.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/f/all-creatures/278729/odds-sods-2022/1417300?pifragment-4285=76#pifragment-4285=1
What better for me, and as yet, I've not ventured far, ewe know what I mean, with this lassie on Baddesley Clinton estate yesterday....
Mike
Flickr: Peak Rambler
Oystercatchers by the sea on a gloomy morning
Lapwing:
Starling:
Great Spotted Woodpecker:
Well captured Snappy. I particularly like the Lapwing. Mine always seem to be a long way off ...
Swan family
On possibly the last day of summer (or should I say, one of the few days of summer) we took the opportunity to have lunch in the garden; a rare event this year indeed. Along came this diaphanous dragonfly and parked itself on a bamboo cane.
I didn't go off and grab my camera as I reckoned it would fly off sharpish.
It didn't. In fact it stayed on the cane for the length of our lunch. Sated, fed and watered I grabbed my camera and monopod.
Although it would flit off occasionally, normally when a bird flew close, it stayed put, allowing me to walk around it; though I was a good 3m or 10' away.
The creature was quite small. The top of the cane is about 6.4mm or 1/4" in diameter.
The hardest part was persuading my R7 to focus on a diaphanous dragonfly against a cluttered background.
The sun god was kind. While the god of cloud and rain was on holiday, which is more than can be said about yesterday.
It always looked depressed, with its wings like this. It also has a passing resemblance to a Harrier jump jet.
I must have spent about 15 minutes photographing it - well, much of the time was persuading my R7 to focus on it - before stopping for 'dessert'. The dragonfly eventually flew off some 20 minutes later. Extraordinary. Normally, they flit off withing seconds or a few minutes of landing. Not hang around for about 40 minutes or so.
90% luck, 5% field craft, 5% camera skills.
Honey Fungus ?:
Chanterelle:
Mallard - Female:
Nuthatch:
Robin: