What a surprise! As every nature-lover is aware this year has been the worst ever for butterflies. The wet, cold spring has been to blame so last weeks five days of warmth and sunshine was a bonus. In our garden only one butterfly appeared and it was a 56 year first – a Holly Blue! It spent more than twenty minutes on one of the garden plants and has not reappeared since!!
After last weeks photos of the male Barn Owl it is now time to catch up with three of the five young that have now fledged from this amazing pair of Barn Owls – the most successful pair in Greater Manchester this year. They now have to catch prey themselves and learn to recognise all the dangers associated with man. I wonder how many of them will still be alive next year?
It is now more than six months since my local male Barn Owl has had to provide food for his family. Firstly he feeds the female for four weeks while she incubates the eggs. Then he finds food for the five young for at least ten weeks while they are in their nest-box. Finally, he has to provide food for another six weeks while they learn to catch their own prey and become independent. We are now up to the latter stage and in sixty years I have never spent as much time filming one species.
In the last couple of weeks Ospreys have spent time fishing lakes and reservoirs in the Pennines as they headed south to their wintering grounds in Africa. Whenever I see an Osprey it always takes me back 15 years to a magical day, when I spent 11 hours in a hide, 20 foot off the ground, overlooking an Osprey nest that contained three large young. It was a day that I will never forget due to the fact that in those eleven hours the male brought 9 fish back to the nest! I sat t?ere taking still photos and video that I will never get chance to repeat!
For more than fifty years I have walked the local canal tow-path and admired the wildlife that calls it home. At present young Kingfishers and Common Sandpipers are on the move with adjacent fields attracting a flock of over a hundred Goldfinches feeding on the thistle seeds.A Roebuck regularly swims across the canal but not when I have my camera! Coot are not common on the canal but, unfortunately, Canada Geese and Cormorants are and taking increasing numbers of fish. In winter Fox tracks are regularly seen as the sun sets beyond the sky-scrapers of central Manchester.
It is now nearly four years since the Covid restrictions were relaxed and we were again able to visit Islay. After losing our June holiday I was anxious to re-visit Jura to search for Otters. When we arrived at the ferry the ferry-man informed us that as nothing on Jura was open to the public the island was effectively closed! When we told him that we had no intention of meeting people and only wanted to film Otters we are finally allowed to cross the Sound. What followed was our best ever encounter of an Otter coming ashore with an Octopus.