June's Catch up.

Little Owl Chick

Just a quick post today to share a few pics from this last month. We have a new little owl chick, first time we have bred them here at the Centre, and we are currently rearing him to be part of our flying team. I have spent a couple of shoots with him to get some record shots of the little one growing, and will do a post sharing some photos of just him probably later next week, but thought I would show this one above. 

This is of him when he was only about 2 and a half, 3 weeks old. It is so far my most popular photo on my Facebook page, and I particularly like it because it shows off how small he really is. And boy, what a great gate he is perched on! :-)

Another reason I shared the little owl photo early, is because the others in this post are not great... but it shows you a work in progress.

Drogo, our new male pine marten, is becoming great at positioning for photography. I am now trying a few different things out and playing with the light a bit. Not really working at the moment, but you can get an idea of what I am trying for.

This was perhaps the closest to what I had in mind, the lens flare was deliberate, but unfortunately the light fell in an area where it was impossible for me to avoid the obvious pen background. I'll think of something though, may be a case of getting him used to some false background or allowing the grass to grow longer along the back. 

 Finally, a couple of photos of frogs. Can you spot the difference?

Above is a marsh frog, and below a pool frog. Some of you may remember we had some young pool frogs in where our water shrews are now. Reared from a young age, when bigger we released them in to our water vole pond. They had been rather shy, but this year have really become bold and are out quite a lot to be seen.

No I am in know way an expert in frogs, and I still get confused about the differences between marsh, edible, pool etc, but there are two thing here that show you its a pool frog. Most obviously the beautiful vivid green/yellow dorsal stripe down the back (although some marsh frogs can show similar too, I did say it was confusing! :-) ) and when you know what you are looking for, you may be able to see that the pool frog also has a more pointed and longer snout than the marsh frog? Can you? Course you can, have a closer look :-)

Oh finally, let me share a video with you of me feeding the pine martens.

OK, for those interested in "Instagram" i recently discovered it, and am actually enjoying using it. I have only uploaded photos I have taken on my phone currently, but am running out fast so will move on to my other photos too to keep it going. If interested, drop by and have a look. You will find me as @themattbinstead I'll mention more about that on my next post. 

Thanks for looking :-)