Day 168 - Wild Boar Chase

brown sheep of the family

We went looking for the boar today, with mixed success...

The day was grey and overcast for the most part, despite the optimistic forecast from the BBC...but as the afternoon waned, the sun came out and it warmed up nicely.

We wandered off down the lane, camera in tow, to see what we could see.

Almost immediately, I spied a brown or grey animal sheltering under the hedgerow, in a field full of otherwise bright white sheep. 

Fortunately I had the zoom lens with me, as they were a long way away, two fields over, and my deteriorating eyesight could only make out a blurry shape.

The photo clearly shows it was just a sheep (also, nice bokeh).

(after this photo, the camera decided it had no battery left, so I changed to my phone...when I rechecked upon arriving home, the camera battery was 94% full...doh!!)

Further down the lane and across the fields, we came across another set of tracks, coming from more or less the same place as yesterday, but heading off in a different direction.

There seemed to be two sets of tracks at some points, one set much smaller than the large.

Here are more of the larger footprints;

As you can see, compared to Anna's tanned hand, this is fairly large.

This lighter is 8cm long, and is about the same length as the fore hoof.  The spur indentations are another couple of cm to the right.

We're estimating that this print belongs to a large male.   For reference, a male boar would typically weigh somewhere between 100 and 175kg...I'm less than 90kg, and Anna's around 50kg, so it's two or three times the size of her, and maybe twice the size of me...this thing could be huge!

The track ran out when it reached the road, although we did find a potential day nest in the ditch under the hedgerow...

On the way back I stopped to grab a better snap of one of these beautiful red trees, over next door's gate.

ornamental hawthorne

The whole of the verge is riddled with ants nests and mole tunnels (must try to get a shot of a mole, we have loads in the garden and round about, at the moment), making mowing harder work than usual...and when mowing this morning, I inadvertently chopped the top off a busy ants nest...oops!

I had exposed a lot of eggs, causing quite a stir amongst the ant colony, and was still feeling guilty about it.

no eggscuse

This was the best of a poor bunch of photo's I took with the decent camera just after the offence was committed.

Using the viewfinder would have meant lying with my legs sticking out into the road and my face in uncomfortably close proximity to a seething mass of angry red ants!   So I just guessed, and took a few hopeful shots.

Checking back this afternoon, as we returned from our walk, they'd got most of the eggs back underground...phew!

As we got back into our garden, there was a hen pheasant hanging around, and I got a few poor shots on my phone.  

meep meep

I can't believe I was this close, with the decent camera around my neck, and the zoom lens on, and I used my phone to take the shots, thinking the good one was out of juice...argh!

Oh well, lesson learned!

More on the developing boar incident as we have it...

:-)

Day 99 - Car Crash

yep that'll do it

Over the last week or so, I've on several occasions flippantly referred to a metaphorical car crash.   Today, the Universe decided to repay my flippancy by involving me peripherally with an actual car crash...and as if to close the loop, this led directly to the rest of my day becoming a metaphorical car crash!

Hence me sitting here at 00.45am just starting my blog, whilst knowing that I have to be in work early in the morning too...like I said, bit of a car crash!

We'd been out for most of the day.

In the morning we visited Kim and Roob.  It was good to see them, catch up with the latest news on their house, share hints and tips on photography, which we're all dabbling in to one degree or another, it seems. 

Anna and I then drove up to Loughborough to spend the afternoon at our favourite bouldering centre.  We climbed quite well overall, but found ourselves tiring quickly, and generally running out of steam after around 3 hours, which is an hour or two less than we usually manage.   But still, it was good to get a session in, having not had a hard climb since we were in Spain a couple of weeks ago. 

We arrived home around 5ish and took Jazz for a stroll down the lane more or less straight away.   His limping has been less pronounced for the last few days, which is quite a relief after the state he was in last weekend.   But still, we didn't take him too far, wary of exacerbating whatever condition he has. 

As we arrived back at the house, we heard a mild screeching of tyres up the road, followed by a low thud.  I looked at Anna questioningly...did that sound a bit like a car crash?!   They're not uncommon on the little winding stretch of road that passes our house...

I went up to the main road to have a look, but couldn't see anything round the bend 50m away.  Looking for a better vantage point, I thought I could see stationary tail lights just around the bend, so ran up to see if I could assist.

Sure enough, rounding the bend I came across a car on its side, and several cars parked up and down the road around it, having stopped to help.

The drivers door was open, up in the air, and three men were gathered around the car, looking into the passenger compartment.   It was clear that someone was in the car. 

My climbing skills (and the fact that I was warmed up from an afternoons climbing) came in very handy over the next few minutes.

I quickly climbed the underside of the car and looked down into the passenger compartment.   A middle aged couple (perhaps a bit older than me) were in a bit of a heap on the floor...or more accurately, on the broken passenger side window.   The man was struggling to his feet and starting to climb out of the top, so I helped him up onto the outside of the rear door.   

It was immediately clear that as well as being fairly large (around my height but heavier) he was also, in fact, very drunk.    I managed to help him into a sitting position on the side of the car, and I stepped down to the ground, gently pulling him with me, until he started to slide off the side.   As his weight started to fall I basically caught him and lowered him to the ground, none the worse for wear. 

I hopped back up to find the woman now standing inside the car, also inebriated.

Conveniently, all afternoon I'd been carefully down-climbing all the problems I did at the bouldering centre. Most people don't bother, but I've been quite diligent about it for a while now, and I'm starting to become fairly proficient.  

So it seemed oddly karmic (or something), when I manoeuvred higher so I could lean down and support the woman as she clambered inelegantly out of the top of the car, and was then faced with one final down-climb of the day...without hesitation, I simply picked her up and easily descended the couple of steps down to the floor, where I gently put her down.

It was immensely satisfying to discover that my recent efforts to get into shape through (and for) climbing hasn't been in vain, as it was remarkably easy to help these two unfortunate, silly, uncoordinated - and by no means small - people out of the mess they'd gotten themselves into.  

I felt completely strong and controlled (and thus, confident), and I'd like to think this helped make the situation less traumatic for those directly involved. 

Yay climbing and the functional strength it brings!

Also, here's another large pheasant, this time strutting his stuff confidently through our garden, and again much less skittish than usual. 

What is going on with these birds?!

cocky cock pheasant

Day 97 - Brave New Breed

handsome chap

I think I'm becoming a bit of a geek, and I blame Anna. 

Before Anna came along I wasn't a geek, I'm sure.  I was cool, wasn't I?  Anyone?

Kim would have to admit that I was a cool dad, definitely... ;-)

But then Anna came along and started telling me the Latin names for everything, and understanding evolution, and being a scientist and whatnot (at least in terms of thinking like one).

Now that's all fair enough, and puts her firmly in the geek camp.

But then she starts telling me (she'd say "pointing out") that I'm a geek too...just because I can build and fix computers, and understand evolution a bit too, and I play computer games, and think like a scientist (or at least, I demand solid logic and reason in my thought processes).

But I wasn't a geek - I was cool!   I'm sure of it...wasn't I?

Now I find myself taking photo's of birds all the time, and increasingly pondering the natural world and how it works, and I'm starting to feel a bit geeky. 

Today, I paid a visit to some friends up in Nottinghamshire.   They live in a lovely house with a large, rural garden, backing onto open fields, much like we do. 

Whilst sitting in the kitchen nattering over a cup of tea, I heard the distinctive cabble (somewhere between a cackle and a gobble) of a pheasant .  I asked if there was any remote chance of getting out to take a photo without scaring him off, to which I was told that he's quite tame!

So I followed him out into the garden, and found him up around the other side of a small outhouse. 

He was a handsome and proud fellow, puffing himself up and strutting about confidently, clearly in search of a good time. 

Earlier, I'd made friends with this absolutely beautiful cat name Bob (looks a bit like a bob cat, and was incorrectly identified as male, initially), and as I approached the pheasant, Bob saw me and came running over to say hello.  

Bob (the) cat

The pheasant, whilst apparently not too concerned about Bob either, nevertheless wouldn't let us approach too near, and used a strategy of moving away at whatever speed I moved towards him.

Sliding smoothly back into geek mode, this seems curiously at odds with the skittishness of the pigeon from the other day.   Pheasants generally seem fairly stupid - often their response to the sight of a predator is to flap noisily into the air, stridently squawking, and thereby drawing the full attention of said predator, who up to this point had been completely unaware of the presence of the bird. 

Yet this pheasant today seemed calm and confident.  Is he just an aberrant individual, who will someday be eaten by a fox or hit by a car that he didn't flee from?  Or is he a smart pheasant, who's learned a useful and efficient strategy for avoiding predation?

Could he be the first of a new breed of clever, proud pheasants?!

You see, geeky rambling - definitely Anna's fault. 

Anyway, there followed a somewhat comedic episode, as I slowly chased the pheasant around the outhouse, trying to get a good view, and a bit closer, whilst the cat chased me around the outhouse, miaowing demandingly for attention.

What with trying to catch the pheasant, whilst trying to shake the cat, and being completely unable to see anything on the screen of my phone, I was lucky to get anything at all.

But still, I got one or two nice pics, and a little story to tell for my blog...and it wouldn't have happened had it not been for trying to get a photo for the blog.  

So, ya know, that works out well.  

love me, minion!

Day 2 - Big Ambition

Ambition

I'm a bit of a cheat today (I know, and it's only day 2!), I must confess...you see, I haven't really got to grips with this one-a-day malarkey yet, this only being day 2 and all.   So I just realised I hadn't taken a photo yet, and now it's dark...damn!   

I started to look for ideas, when Anna interrupted, "Ooh, let me show you this pic I took this morning....".  I'm not sure what I was expecting(!) but when I saw this photo I knew I'd found my 1-a-day, and resolved to steal it immediately!   

Not only is it a dramatic, live action wildlife shot, but if you know Maisie, then it's kinda funny at the same time.  

She's a tiny cat, only has 3 legs, at least one dodgy eye, and is generally skittish and playful...to see her in full-on predator mode, against a bird twice her size, no less, is pretty quirky (in a Maisie sorta way), not to mention impressive - her ambition and confidence at least, no?    

Also, it's fairly typical of the sort of animal tomfoolery we witness regularly around here, and these are the moments of natural beauty, drama and entertainment that sustain our souls.  

It neatly symbolises why we live here, and why we love it.    

So Maisie once again stars as the photo of the day.    I wonder if this is going to become a thing?  She is super cute, and a ninja too...anything could happen!   

Anyway, here's to Maisie - she's a living legend..long may her antics continue to entertain us!