Young rabbit and an unfortunate woodpecker

Today, as part of my personal fitness programme I cycled from Didcot to Oxford and then back again. Along the journey I saw a lot of wildlife, although most of it moves too fast to be able to photograph. I did manage to get a shot of this young rabbit (above).

Unfortunately, on the way home I found this woodpecker lying on the path. It was an isolated path through trees with no buildings and no traffic, so it seemed very weird to find it there on the ground like that. I wasn't sure if it was just stunned or dead, so I picked it up. It was still warm, so I guess the accident had only just happened. I put the poor thing on a log surrounded by ivy away from the path. Sadly, I think it was dead.

Easter in Pembrokeshire

I'm spending Easter at my parents' house in Pembrokeshire, Wales. Mostly the weather has been too wet to go outside, but here are a few photographs I've taken so far including these blue tits (taken through the glass of the kitchen window), and a sequence of three photos of a woodpecker. In the third shot of the woodpecker, a sparrow has come down to feed on the peanuts and caused the woodpecker to take flight. The photo captures the woodpecker mid-flight in a flurry of motion.



The final photo I am showing you doesn't feature any wildlife. I thought it was interesting as the rainbow's end is in the field below my parents' garden. Am I supposed to go digging there for a pot of gold now?

A Welsh Woodpecker

I'm at my parents' house in Pembrokeshire for a few days (don't worry, the hedgehogs are still being fed nightly back at home), and have brought my wildlife camera with me. Unfortunately I don't think hedgehogs are very common in this part of Wales (too many badgers perhaps?), but I did manage to get a minute of footage of this Greater Spotted Woodpecker feeding on the peanuts in the hanger on the tree in my parents' garden this afternoon.

Unfortunately the only place I could position the camera on the tree was facing into the sun, so the picture looks drained of colour.