Up Close and Personal

I wanted to capture some more images of spring this weekend. There were 3 specific things I had in mind and that was fox cubs, badger cubs and a muntjac fawn.

It was harder than I thought it would be. The easy one was the badger cubs as I'd been watching them all week. Unfortunately, the footage is a little dull but I managed to get a good 5 minutes worth of two cubs, two adults plus a juvenile.

I spent the longest time on the fox watch. I went straight to the fox earth from last year. I waited for about 4 hours before they came out. They were very skittish and I counted only 3 as opposed to last years 6.

The adult lapwings tried to lure me away from the chick, but I'm a little too wise for that one. Even so, the youngster did a great job of keeping still and blending in with the background.

Although I captured plenty of plant images (the above is a Star of Bethlehem) time was running out for the muntjac. I saw a total of 3 adults (2 bucks and a doe) but I didn't see a youngster.

As a last ditch attempt I went into Broaks wood. Although not as warm today as the two previous days, it was nice and quiet before the dog walkers came in.

I saw another buck - but no young. However I did come across this grass snake trying to grab the few rays of sun that were trying to break through the cloud. I haven't seen one for ages and he was very amenable to my study, allowing me to get up close and personal.

I was pleased to see a white throat as well. This is a common summer visitor to the UK but it has managed to escape my all time bird list... until now.

I never did find any mutjac fawns. But I spent a great three days trying and I'll try to finish editing the full "Springwatch" video by mid-week. In the meantime, here are the fox cubs.

 

Thanks for the visit.

Pablo.