Category Archives: Buckinghamshire

The Secret Life of the Compost Heap III

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The same Compost Heap, different rabbit hole. Tonight we were visited by the cute Polecat, a member of the Mustelid family. The Polecat rolled around the ground where a rabbit had been digging. Was it trying to disguise its scent? The previous night was a mystery, the camera failed to operate for some reason.

We have recently been wondering where all the rabbits had gone. Over Summer the grassland around our house had been inundated with rabbits. Since the autumn the number of rabbits has reduced. Even Garden Bunny who I reported on in October has vanished. A tasty morsel for the Polecat, or Mr Fox?

The Secret Life of the Compost Heap II

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Another night and the same compost heap, but a different set of starring animals. The Rabbits and Mouse appeared and hogged the camera. They made a hasty getaway when the starring animals appeared, a Fox and a Polecat. The Polecat appeared out of the rabbit hole, and later at the end can be seen rushing back in. The Fox stood and looked at the camera. The later images are poor because of a light frost covering on the lens.

The Secret Life of the Compost Heap

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Fox and Badger in the Compost Heap

Rosemary has her Christmas present, which I am making good use of. It is a Bushnell Trail Cam, designed to scout out your land for wildlife. (I believe the intention of the American manufacturer is you see what there is, and then using one of their rifles, shoot it.)

The camera can take video and still pictures. At night in black and white, and during the day in colour. There is a motion detector which activates the device when a warm body enters the scene. This picks up birds, mice and larger mammals. Unfortunately, there is no filter to remove the numerous images and videos of rabbits.

My first test was a disaster, mounted the camera too high, looking down the garden. All it picked up was me when I was setting it, testing it and coming back to retrieve it. Our next test on Sunday night was by the compost heap during Storm Bella. Here we picked up some rabbits, and a badger investigating the rabbit hole. The following day, it picked up some birds during the day, and the badger during the night (and rabbits). The badger did seem interested in the camera, I can only think it could see the low glow LED lights. Last night I took still images and not video, this time a fox visited. No badger to be seen.

So far:

  • Numerous rabbits
  • Badger
  • Fox
  • Rodent (Rosemary hopes not a rat)
  • Chaffinch
  • Blackbird
  • Thrush

Waddesdon Manor Lights

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Waddesdon Manor Christmas Lights

We visited Waddesdon Manor to see the lights. Because of Covid 19, the house was not open and everyone was encouraged to walk up to the manor instead of taking the bus. The encouragement was a financial incentive. Unfortunately, it was a damp evening with a light drizzle. As the daylight dimmed, the lights grew brighter.

There was the Christmas market set up in front of the house. I didn’t visit the area, instead, I walked around the lights before and after dark.

We both were a little underwhelmed by the light effects. There have been better. I particularly liked the Bruce Munroe lights back in 2015. We both thought Waddesdon Manor was allowing far too many people onto the site. There was a large queue of people trying to get in with their timed tickets. Around some of the lights, social distancing seems to have been thrown out of the window. Some limitations on the number of people viewing the lights at one time should have been in place. No wonder Buckinghamshire is heading to Tier 3. (update on 19 December it entered Tier 3).

The walk down to the Stables needs to be planned, I would not recommend taking the path through the playground. It is narrow and there is two-way traffic. Instead walk down the road, dodging the busses. It remains to be seen whether this event becomes a Christmas superspreader.

The main set was a 3 minute light show set to the music of Handel Water Music: Hornpipe. On the loop around the grounds, there were several other areas laid out with light effects. Some elephants standing by the pathway were pretty cool. I am not sure about the lighting of the house, this didn’t seem as spectacular as usual. Normally the trees to the side of the driveway are lit up. This year they were not, possibly because of the Christmas market.

Should I follow in the footsteps of Noah?

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Garden Bunny
The most fearless wild rabbit I have ever come across!

The last few days have seen rain, and more rain. The field was totally flooded. The field pond went from empty to full in the course of a couple of days. The leaking garden pond is almost full. Not seen such high levels for years. This rain has added to a water main leaking outside one of our neighbours since at least March. I did wonder why one of our field gateways had been damp during the summer. The water apparently flowed to her ménage, which is well drained, and then through the ménage land-drains to the gateway. Thankfully Thames Water have at last fixed the leak. This though is worthy of its own story.

The rain has again attracted the Little Egret, and flocks of gulls, who suddenly descend on the field as if it were the seashore. If I wanted a house by the sea I would not have bought a house which is probably as far away from the coast as you can get in the UK. Not only do we have these coastal birds visiting us, we now have Garden Bunny. Such a fearless animal sitting eating our grass for most of the day, totally ignoring us as we walk around the house & garden, and the tractor which came into the garden to cut the hedges. One worry is that Rosemary saw some baby bunnies the other day.

Ascott House

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Ascott House

National Trust house between Wing and Leighton Buzzard

Desperate to take the new automobile out for a drive, we hit upon a visit to the National Trust property, Ascott House. The interior of the house was not open, but the gardens were. We had booked our visit time and managed to arrive late. Little issues such as setting the house alarm off as we left caused a delay. As is always the case, the traffic then becomes intense, so we could not get back on the road, and when we did we became stuck behind farm vehicles. It is harvest time.

No matter we arrived and were surprised at the number of people visiting, making it difficult to get those people free pictures of the gardens. Maybe I should do street photography where people are the star of that genre of photography. Not to worry, the garden was amazing, despite it being past its best. Lovely and warm, the sun was shining. As the day wore on it did become a little bit hazy.

I have been to this house before, probably in the last century. Rosemary visited with some friends just over a month ago. She wanted to show me around these fabulous gardens. Some very interesting fountains and some unusual ponds and displays in the Lynn Garden. The Lynn Garden is not your traditional garden, it definitely would be a fun garden to be in. I thing rugrats would definitly appreciate the large grassy earth mounds. Thankfully they were absent, back at school.

Sad to see all the yellow leaves on the chestnut trees, not autumn colours, but diseased leaves.

Nice to see a couple looking at our new car as we walked back. Didn’t think I would become a car bore.

Another one bites the dust

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Kestrel

This Kestrel has been spotted 9 times feeding from our feeder. How many more birds it has taken without us seeing is anyone’s guess. It is so pretty, but so our are finches and blue tits! Nature is arguably cruel, and I suppose they have to feed, as we similarily eat those pretty lambs I took pictures of at the beginning of lockdown. Shame I can’t quite read the number on his ring.

Little Egret

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The recent torrential rain has ended summer and attracted a Little Egret. The Little Egret could be seen wading around the field pulling up worms for breakfast. The Little Egret was large, so we thought we were lucky and had a Great Egret. Alas, beak, legs and feet show it to be a Little Egret, a far more common variety.

Wildlife

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Garden Life

Life can be tough. This year we have seen masses of Goldfinch, at the same time there have been Magpies, Sparrowhawks and Kestrels, all feeding on the smaller birds. Most days there are piles of feathers around the garden and field where some bird has met its maker. While this Kestrel was feeding, the Goldfinch were still at their Niger seed.

Comet NEOWISE

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Cloudless evening on Monday so I attempted to photograph NEOWISE. The problem I had was with my knowledge of the camera. I didn’t know where infinity was on the lens scale. Should it be hard up against the stop, on the infinity mark or some other position? Does it change with different zoom? During daylight this morning I discovered it was significantly different, more on the 300-meter distance, and does change with focal lengths. It is difficult to focus through the viewfinder when there is just black. No help from the moon to act as a focusing aid, because it was a new moon. So alas my pictures could be sharper. Possibly I should have tried focusing on the planets of Jupiter and Saturn which were very bright, close together and towards the South East.

The first photograph, where you can see the trees, was taken on my mobile phone. With a little imagination, you can see the comet trail point directly upwards. The second photograph was taken with the DSLR, zoomed and cropped to the comet.

The tail of the comet was just visible with the naked eye, but only if you knew where to look and had spotted it with binoculars. I was looking after 11 pm. Any earlier and the sky was too bright, leave it later and I believe the comet was nearer the horizon. When we saw the comet, it was towards the North West, halfway between the horizon and star called Dubhe in The Plough constellation. Dubhe is one of two pointer stars used to locate Polaris.

R and I had made a previous attempt by getting up at 3.30 in the morning, alas it was cloudy on the horizon, we looked in the wrong direction, and it was getting very bright at that time of the morning. Excellent view of Venus, it is now viewable in the morning.