from Tadpoles to Wild Deer.........it's been an Eclectic week!

I usually have a pretty good idea of what I will be shooting from week to week, but this week has been a little different. Although I try to get out with the camera every day, sometimes there is just too much going on and I need to concentrate on our home, garden and all the other mundane chores that require attention.

So this weeks blog has no 'core' subject, but rather reflects the odd times, when I have been able to pick up the camera and 'escape' for a few minutes!

My current and ongoing project about Iberian Water Frogs is progressing slowly and the tadpoles have now all 'hatched' and grown a little over the past two weeks.

These images were taken on Monday and we can now clearly see the eyes and the formation of the body within the outer protective membrane. Unfortunately, their numbers are diminishing, so I have to hope that enough will survive to reach adulthood.

On Tuesday, I managed to grab the camera and 'macro' set-up at lunchtime and had a 'wander' around the garden to see what I could find. Fortunately, I spotted a couple of 'jumping spiders', who had just caught their own lunch..........

These tiny spiders (around 1/4" long) will tackle a wide range of prey, including creatures larger than themselves. They are also able to jump 50 times their body length in one go!

This fly was spotted on our camelia bush, sucking up some nectar that had been washed from the flowers in the overnight rain.

This cranefly flew past me and landed in a tree nearby, Luckily for me, it landed at just the right height for me to capture this shot, before it flew off again.

Wednesday was a really busy day in the garden, but between mowing the lawns and strimming, I managed to capture a coupe of shots.

For the first time in 3 years, we had seen Great Spotted Woodpeckers in our garden this week, feeding on the fat balls that we put out for the birds. On Thursday, I decided to put up my portable hide, near the feeding station and after waiting patiently for a few hours, I was rewarded with this shot of a male bird, along with some of our other residents.

This Greenfinch is a very rare vistor to the garden, so I was very pleased to catch a couple of decent images. I have only seen it on 3 occasions, so far this year!

This wagtail (along with a group of up to 6 others) made the most of his visit, by reducing the spider population. These birds reactions are incredibly fast, as they pluck insects from the ground and even flies out of the air, as they go past.

By Friday, I really needed to get out for a few hours and see what I could find. I jumped in the car and headed out with my gear to search the local lanes and tracks, mainly in the hope of getting some decent close-up shots of the Grey Herons that are now here. Sadly, they were not playing ball and were all too far away to even get the camera out of the car. 

However, in an incredible piece of luck, I spotted this young deer grazing on a track nearby and managed to get a few shots, before I spooked it and it ran off.

As you can imagine, that made my week, as these sorts of encounters very rarely happen in the wild and certainly not often at a distance where I can get some decent images.

Having decided that I had used up all my luck for one week, I returned home to the hide and spent a couple of hours shooting garden birds. I have been hoping to get some decent images of a Nuthatch for quite some time, so when this fella turned up, it completely made the wait worthwhile!

So there we have it, a week of wildlife from my perspective. I hope you enjoyed reading about it!

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