Red Deer rut at Bradgate Park

Disaster! My trusty video camera has died! That means until I can get it fixed there will be no slow motion and no super close ups. The only camera I have is awful for nature shots but it will have to do for now. Its an old Fujifilm S5500. Anyhow, I took it to Bradgate Park early in the morning and caught some of the Red Deer rut. However the only deer I managed to photograph with no motion blur was this one, and as you can see this one could well have been asleep.

Still the morning was beautiful and the sky blue. As far as the eye could see a mist covered the land. It reminded me of cloud inversions that I have occasionally seen on mountains. For a while I could kid myself that the hill of Bradgate park was the Summit of Snowdon or some other hill.

As the day warmed up, Leicester began to emerge from the white gloom. The tops of the buildings appearing first.

Then on the distant horizon Billesdon Coplow, like a distant battleship on a murky sea, caught my eye. Itself, for a time, the only other land above the mist.

Walking around Felley, Nottinghamshire

At the weekend we went for a walk through rural Nottinghamshire. The landscape was a mix of arable land and woodland. The horizon to the west was clear and we could see both the church we were married in and beyond that Crich Stand in Derbyshire.

The mix of wild and farmed land is great for the wildlife and those that want to spot it. We could see this herd of deer rooting around amongst the newly cut stubble.

At a bench we stopped for a while and I spotted this great Cereal Leaf Beetle (Oulema melanopa) eating away on a grass leaf.

I also spotted this unusual Stem-boring Fly (Opomyza germinationis). Apparently the insect folk over at Wild about Britain think this is an unusual specimen as it looks "under-marked on the thorax". I don't really know what that means but it was nice to see it anyway.

We also got a glimpse of this Kestrel (Falco tinnunculus) hovering over the fields. In the distance we could also see a buzzard being mobbed by two crows and for a while fighting back.The day ended with this great sunset. Clouds beyond the horizon were casting shadows up into the night sky giving it that "sunny delight" look.

Mammal life at Bradgate Park

A short training walk today around Bradgate Park this afternoon yielded some interesting species. This is the route I walked.

http://www.mapmyhike.com/route/gb/groby/765124767920228524

The first thing I saw was the smaller species of deer that inhabit the country park, the Fallow Deer (Dama Dama). Now either they are extremely tame, or my camouflage gear is very good because at one point I could have touched one that was grazing near me. The Fallow Deer at Bradgate seem to hang around in small (~10) herds and graze together. I felt honored to get so close to them. It was fantastic!

There is another species of deer in the park that are best avoided. These are the Red Deer (Cervus elaphus). I dislike how people describe the stags as aggressive. At most they are territorial and grumpy. The best thing to do is just stay out of their way.

During my day I did come across two alien mammals. The first is visible in the picture at the top. See it? Yes that's it the Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus ). The other was a Grey Squirrel (Sciurus carolinensis ) that I found in the woods. It wasn't a tame one, so I had to use all my cunning to film him. Yes, that's right, I hid behind a tree.

OK so it wasn't a Red Squirrel, but they are long gone. There is no point blaming the squirrel for the fact that we introduced it. Its no good crying over the loss of the red squirrel, crying won't make it better. We might as well rejoice in the squirrel that we now have.