Fox, rabbits and hiding in a bush!

I've been spending a lot of time standing in a hedgerow, camera poised taking hundreds of rabbit photos. I've been hoping to get a decent photo of a fox, each fox encounter was better than the last.

Walking up the side of the field a couple of weeks ago.

Hunting at the field edge.

One of those occasions when you have to stand in full view trying not to draw attention to yourself.

(Why do camera's click so loud?)

It was about this time that I decided to hang out with the local rabbits, the far corner of this field is flooded, what could be better water and food.

Over the next few evenings I moved closer to the rabbits standing in any depression in the hedge to help hide myself and photographed them in every pose possible.

 A pair of wood pigeons moved in to the area and the rabbits attempted to chase them away.

The fox had not read the script it was supposed to enter stage left, but looking over my shoulder I spotted a red dot at the other side of the field.

Even more rabbit photos. 

On one occasion leaving the field a face appeared, thought  it would be gone before I could take a photo but.

Another occasion more rabbit watching the usual grass munching and hopping around when things changed rabbits went everywhere one rabbit ran into the field and towards me.

I was trying to watch the rabbit and look in the direction it was looking suddenly there was a fox to my left.

I think its a vixen and it seems to be keeping it's right rear leg up in every photo but it didn't seem to move with a limp.

As it moved across the field I noticed that the rabbit was also coming into shot.

The fox didn't see the rabbit and continued to move towards the edge of the field until it moved out of sight into the hedge. 

This happened on a Friday evening, Saturday morning I thought I would leave that field edge alone and try my luck in another field.

I wonder who's stalking who?

My flickr photos

Rats nest.

I first discovered my local rats nest when I saw a magpie hopping up and down, some movement on the ground turned out to be a rat. Checking the hedge where the magpie had been  I found a hole and decided it would be a good place to come back to some evening and watch. That first evening there were quite a few rats emerging from the main hole and a smaller hole by the base of the hawthorn bush.

I was passing by the other day and checking the rats nest I noticed the main entrance had been enlarged and near by there was a new perfectly round hole. I decided to visit the holes again to see what was going on.

As the evening wore on I kept seeing heads popping out of the main large hole but they were not coming out. I changed my position as I had a thought it might be me stopping them coming out.

I had no sooner moved when the biggest rat I've ever seen came running over to the nest area right from were I'd been standing only minutes before.

During the time at the nest the rat went up into the hawthorn bush several times unfortunatley I could not get a picture of it in the bush (I checked the bush in the daylight there does not seem to be any nests there.)

When I was checking my photos I noticed that it was the same rat running about all night because the end of it's tail is missing.

High cold winds and wanting to be up early in the morning brought the session to an end.

Garden wildlife pond.

I've been doing a lot of reading on the Internet about wildlife gardens. It seems that water is one is one of the best features to add to a garden to attract wildlife. 
So I've added two small ponds to a strip of ground in my garden and a small wetland created with old under the bed storage boxes.
I've also made two rock piles with twigs and logs piled in the general area.

This is the other mini wetland I've created with the storage boxes, one has a hole in the bottom so I have filled it with soil to become a bog garden.

It looks very bare at the moment but I have some bags of bulbs to plant and a load of wildflower seeds so hopefully in the summer there will be lots of colour.

The birds have been enjoying the new pond area, most of these photos were taken by my trail camera.

I'm looking forward to watching the area change as the year goes on plants will be added to the ponds when they become available in the local garden center.

Bird box update

A Great tit has been in one of my bird boxes.
My heart was in my mouth watching it struggling to get out. The hole is 30mm and a great tit hole is only supposed to be about 28mm.

A great start to my garden bird boxes.