What a wonderful way to spend Easter Monday; watching a male Kingfisher catching fish to provision his mate and ultimately see the pair mating. Firstly, credit must go to Tom Robinson (wildlife-photography-hides.co.uk) for creating a wonderful photography hide set up specifically for these stunning birds. I've visited a similar setup previously, but I must say the backdrop to the fishing perch at this hide is beautiful, being mostly distant reed beds and further back still, trees, all of which are rendered buttery smooth via a big telephoto lens. We were in the hide from 07:00 to 17:00, which ..read more

In November 2023, we visited Amboseli National Park as part of a tour of a few national parks. It's the season of the short rains and you can be lucky or unlucky with the weather. For most of the safari, we were indeed lucky, but in Amboseli, we experienced some serious rain. While it impacted our wildlife viewing there was a much bigger, more important picture. For the previous 2-3 years, Kenya had been gripped by a serious drought which had killed a large number of elephants in Amboseli and had almost wiped out the herds of grazing antelope and zebra; their skeletons were scattered everywher ..read more

Well, who knew that December 4th is World Cheetah Day? It's a remarkable coincidence as I've been processing some images of Cheetahs that I was lucky enough to capture on a recent holiday to Kenya and Tanzania. For the first time, we saw a female Cheetah with young cubs, four of them to be precise. Initially, we thought the distant sighting was a single Cheetah lying alongside a woody shrub, but it quickly became apparent that she had cubs with her. They were distant enough to require the use of a X2 extender on my 500mm lens. We were extremely fortunate that the female was very much in huntin ..read more

For the last two weeks, there's been an incessant chirping coming from the woodpecker nest. Finally, we're starting to see the chicks appearing at the nest hole, impatiently looking for food. From looking at differences in the extent of the colouration of the foreheads, there appear to be at least two chicks in the nest. https://youtu.be/mqpHWv_YFU4 ..read more

For the last four days, I've had the huge privilege of seeing a male Great Spotted Woodpecker preparing a nest hole in the Bird Cherry tree outside my office window. I've never managed to get a decent photograph of a Spotty as they always seem incredibly wary of being watched, but that's all changed and I now I have a ringside seat to a real wildlife spectacle. I took this short video through the office window pane. After three days of excavation, the woodpecker has created a large enough hole to turn around in. I presume it's now excavating downward to make the egg chamber. The female seems t ..read more

Big brother Scar on baby sitting duties (again ..read more

Here's Scar, one of last year's cubs, baby sitting his younger 2022 sibling. Yep, I know, it's insanely cute. Scar was grooming the cub by nibbling the fur around its neck and ears. The cub was loving it and clearly has a close relationship with its big brother. This family of foxes are already providing fascinating insights into fox behaviour ..read more

I knew that there were at least two cubs in the immediate area from camera trap footage, but I couldn't believe my eyes when this little beauty appeared. As I had suspected for a while, last year's cubs - Dark Face, Scar and Dot - have stayed in their natal territory and have been helping to support their mum, White-Eye, as she raises another litter of cubs. This evening, both Scar and Dark Face were baby sitting the first cub to venture out of the woods. Despite being incredibly bold, the cub was intimidated by the crows causing it to run for cover between Scar's legs. The whole scene was so ..read more

It's increasingly clear that, once again, the more I observe the Cambridge foxes, the more they confound the information I've read about this amazing species. There's a family group of five 'adult' foxes sharing a territory; White-eye the dominant vixen who for the fourth year in succession has a litter of cubs, Red21 her mate, and three of last years cubs - Dark-face, Scar and Dot. While I'm not too surprised by some of last year's cubs still being around, Dot is a male fox, who if standard behaviour is to be believed, should have been driven away last autumn. The other vixen who's seen infr ..read more

I've been back in Cambridge full time for a couple of months following the UK government's 'work from home' request in response to the omicron wave. During this time, wildlife sightings have been extremely good and fairly dependable, especially the foxes. As a result, I've slowly 'got my eye in' for identifying the individual foxes. The good news is that six of last year's foxes are still present, including all three of last year's cubs. So this year I am hoping to be sharing images and updates of these fascinating creatures. Red 21 This handsome fox is the same territorial male from last year ..read more