Reader John Pears sent two dollops of photos: this one and some lions he snapped on a trip to Africa. I’ll show the lions later, but here’s the first batch, with John’s comments indented.
It’s a while since I’ve shared photos with you due to house moves, new grandchild, etc but I didn’t retire my camera and had some exciting trips and photo opportunities in 2015.
John’s photos are below, and you can see more pictures on his Instagram photo account, @jdphoto60.
The year started with a trip to a local reservoir at Blithfield where I watched 2 Grey Squirrels (Sciurus carolinensis) squeezing into a small hole!
Note the nose of squirrel #2 at the bottom of the hole!
Eurasian Robins (Erithacus rubecula) are always worth a photograph or two. I grew up being told they are part of the thrush family but are now classified as chats.
Eurasian Treecreepers (Certhia familiaris) are tricky to photograph as they seldom pause in their search for insects underneath the bark.
Finally Goldcrest (Regulus regulus) are one of Europe’s smallest birds (I believe the firecrest is the smallest). This one was hovering and flitting in the branches taking midges before finally settling for this capture, one of my favourites from 2015.
The following morning I return for the sunrise and was rewarded with clear views of sunspots (bottom left quadrant)
Your favorite is my favorite too !
Love the nose poking out in the first photo!!
Indeed! Looks like a punk-rock squirrel. A Punkirrel?
Very nice! 🙂
Truly lovely photos/subjects… thanks, John.
Very good. I especially like the Goldcrest. That picture in particular is like a painting.
Now, that calls for some Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band.
The Eurasian Robin is called the robin redbreast in the UK. A popular bird because it is friendly and often approaches without fear. It will perch on the handle of a spade and wait close by to see what the gardener turns up. Beloved of xmas cards.
Lovely pics. I love how they’re all eyeing you up – what’s this guy doing?
I love the way creepers ALWAYS creep up and nuthatches ALWAYS creep down . . . very entertaining!
Reblogged this on Scotties Toy Box and commented:
I love photos of nature and landscapes. I thank the author of this blog for these pictures and the information included. Hugs
Thank you for all your kind comments….
A real treat, John! I always love to see birds, and it’s fun to see how closely some of your common species parallel ours–in this case your Treecreeper & Goldcrest versus our Brown Creeper and Kinglets.
yes and the chickadee/tits, nuthatches etc
Indeed! When I first started watching European feeder cams I was amazed at how much of the traffic looked just like mine (here in the US)!
Then I was amused to realize that the European common names were often just the single, unmodified noun. Jay, Wren, Nuthatch, Blackbird, etc. Made sense when it dawned on me that those names no doubt far out-dated ours. (Of course here we tend to put “European” in front of all those.) And our US equivalents all have at least one modifier in their official common name.
“Out-dated” should be “pre-dated,”, of course.