Category Archives: Buckinghamshire

Two Fox Cubs show themselves

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We have been eagerly anticipating the arrival of this year’s fox cubs, and on the 25th of April we were delighted to catch a glimpse of one cub. The little furball popped out of the den for a few seconds, curious about the world above ground. The next day, we saw two cubs emerge for several minutes, stumbling around on their tiny paws. The video shows how the vixen visits the den regularly to feed her babies. You can also see how the rabbits seem oblivious to the danger lurking nearby. This could prove fatal for them; the previous video shows a fox carrying a rabbit back to its family.

Fox cubs are born blind and deaf, with dark grey fur and floppy ears. They weigh only about 100g at birth. Their eyes open after two weeks and change colour from blue to amber after a month2. Their red fur starts to appear on their face and their muzzle turns white as they grow older. By six to eight weeks, they are weaned from their mother and start to explore outside the den. They are incredibly smart and have a keen sense of sight, hearing, and smell. They are also very adaptable and can survive in a wide range of habitats, from woodland to urban areas. Foxes are social animals and live in loose family groups, sometimes helping each other to raise the next generation.

Fox, Badger, Muntjac, Magpie and Rabbits living in harmony

Blasdale Home Posted on by

A couple of videos of our foxes from Christmas until April. We believe these are the same two foxes starring throughout both videos. The Fox with the bushy tail is a dog fox, while the fox with the skinny tail is the vixen.

Hopefully the next video will be some fox cubs. Now the sun is out, I am assuming they will be venturing out from their den.

Foxes at Christmas
Foxes from January to April

Rabbit Spring Cleaning

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We have several rabbit holes under and through the compost heap. Often, they get taken over by foxes and badgers. Here is a video of one rabbit digging some earth out of its burrow. Instead of digging and scattering the dirt into a mound behind itself, this rabbit also pushes the soil forwards using its front paws, spreading it out into a low flat low layer. Very neat. It worked alone over a couple of days. Starting just before sunset on January 28th, and then over a period of 40 minutes on the morning of the 29th. It was amazingly neat. Finally in the last minutes of digging, a Redwing bird comes and helps out.

Garden Nature – Grey Heron

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2nd February 2023

Rosemary spotted a Grey Heron near the field pond. I rushed out to take a photograph. I was far from it, and it was standing down the slope to the pond, so little of the Heron was in sight. I grabbed a few frames from about100 meters away, and then walked towards it. Of course, it flew off.

I looked at the frames I took, not technically good, but you could see it was eating a frog or toad. So worth keeping them. I think it was a Toad, and so does Rosemary.

Our very Own Otter

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2nd January 2023

The wildlife camera threw up an interesting find. In between the rabbits, muntjac deer and the foxes, was an Otter. We have seen it only once. Maybe it was exploring the pond. There are several ponds in the immediate vicinity, many with fish. Our pond dries out in the Summer so not suitable for fish. Anyway, nice to see it, a change from Rabbits and Foxes.

Garden Nature – Sparrowhawk

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1st January 2023

The New Year brought with it the Sparrowhawk. It spent an exceptionally long time perched in the tree by the bird feeders. Most of the time was spent preening. Needless to say, there were no songbirds in the vicinity. I took several (hundreds) of photographs, which I have trimmed down to this lucky sequence of it emptying out our songbirds in one avian excretion.

Fox Cubs

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Back in the late spring, early summer of 2022, we had a skulk of foxes in the field bringing up four fox cubs. We believe it was two vixens, with a couple of cubs each. Normally we would see two cubs at a time, but on occasion another two cubs would come from the other side of the mound and join in with the play. One set of cubs disappeared during the summer. We assume (hope) they moved on somewhere else. The cubs are now fully grown, and we have seen them since this video was put together.

You can watch the short edition, a little over 5 minutes, or the long two and a quarter hour video. The longer video also stars Badger, Muntjac deer, Squirrels, rabbits, Great spotted woodpecker and various other birds.

The Highlights

Five minutes and 52 seconds showing the highlights of the cubs.

The Full Monty of a Video

Two hours and 19 minutes. The full monty.

Cold winter in Kingswood

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11th December 2022

We have had a dry and very cold few days in the United Kingdom. The temperature in Kingswood dropped to -11C and has been below freezing all night and day. I haven’t felt anything as cold as this since we first moved here in the late 1980s. Despite this cold patch, the UK average temperature for 2022 averaged more than 10C, the first time ever it has topped 10C. The cold weather went on until the 18th, but of course warmed up for Christmas.

I grabbed a few pictures of the frost patterns on cobwebs and vegetation using my mobile phone.

Occulation of Mars

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8th December 2022

I was up at 4.00 UTC to see a rare event. The planet Mars was occulated by the moon. The next time this happens will be January 2025. I took around 80 photographs, discarded many, and superimposed each image on top of each other. You can see the moon in the center of the image, and images of Mars on the top left getting closer and closer to the moon. Eventually Mars was behind the moon. This occurred at around 4.59. I went back to bed, intending to photograph the moon when Mars reappeared on the bottom right. I was a little late for this and missed the initial image of Mars reappearing an hour later at 5.58.

I was lucky, a noticeably clear night in Buckinghamshire, though cool at -5C. The down jacket did little to keep my hands warm.

The occulation of Mars

Kingswood Firework Party

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5th November 2022

Unusually we had the Kingswood Firework party this year on the actual fifth of November. But, as is usual, we had a magnificent bonfire & fireworks & BBQ. No guy to burn this year, despite plenty of candidate effigies, such as a lettuce, a Liz or a Boris. The weather was a little damp, although the rain did hold out to the end of the firework display. Those finishing off the burgers, bangers, beer and wine did have to shelter under the canopies when there was a short torrential downpour.

For a few, the evening ended in a Kingswood house where a considerable volume of whisky etc was consumed, amidst much camaraderie.