Last week was a bit of a mixed bag to be honest. I had one early morning start before work to try and get some images of the fox family again. I'm a bit worried about whats going on here as I haven't seen them for over a week now. As we live next to the A1 I am always concerned that mum could get hit if she crosses over the carriageway. In fact i was so concerned I had a check along the section of road nearest to us just to be sure. Obviously I will keep trying with this one, I'm not even worried about getting more images as long as they are all ok.With visiting the foxes I had noticed that there is a female roe deer who seems to have laid claim to the small wood where the fox den is located. This is unusual for deer as in my experience they tend to move around daily and have always moved to another part of there territory the following day. The reason for this became clear in mid week when I changed my route across the field slightly and almost stepped on a roe deer fawn. We where both startled but although the deer ran off I can confirm it was back with mum later in the week.
When theirs nothing doing on the mammal front doing I tend to switch to using my macro lens. The warm weather seems to have brought quiet a range of insects out between the showers! I also took delivery of a new field guide which I can highly recommend. Britains Spiders is a Wildguide by Lawrence Bee, Geoff Oxford and Helen Smith. For me this is the best guide on spiders I have had. I did have the Collins guide but found this very difficult to use as it really needed you to dissect the spider under a microscope to get an ID. This guide uses photographs of spiders in the field which is much more useful for me as a photographer. Most spiders I can get a reasonable identification accepting that there are lots that can only be positively identified with a microscope.
I had the weekend to myself as Mel and Leia where off to the Chatsworth flower show and the Newark Retro Festival respectively. On Saturday I got my long bike out of the way, the twenty miles of headwind on the way back was not appreciated!
Sunday saw me head off to Bleaklow in the Peak District. This is one of my favourite parts of moorland. Leia and me first explored it while looking for aircraft wrecks. I can highly recommend the Dark Peak Aircraft Wrecks by Ron Collier. The wreck site of the Super Fortress is particularly
sobering.
I was up there early and on the look out for Golden Plover, Mountain Hare in there summer coats and was hoping I might see Short Eared Owl hunting. The wind was a big problem making it hard to keep the big lens steady. As it turned out Golden Plover where right on the top but just wanted to keep out of range of my lens, although I did get a few shots. I also managed to get close to another wader the Curlew but disappointingly I didn't see any owls. The hares as normal seemed content to snuggle down out of the wind. The only rapter I saw was a Hobby chasing a martin but at distance, still it was nice to see as I headed back to the car.
I was trying out my new Vanguard Uprise 48 and tripod on Bleaklow. Both worked really well although I would be grateful if any of my followers have recommendations for a small flask that doesn't leak. The Vanguard has a super space for personal items at the top of the bag. Unfortunately this means a flask is located above all the camera kit. Can anyone see the issue with this! Now I don't criticise Vanguard for this as all camera bags seem to have the same configuration. Anyway please get in touch with your recommendations for leak proof flasks.
More next week!
Scott
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