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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Farnboro John" data-source="post: 1718454" data-attributes="member: 36432">Funny sort of weekend, I had planned to do the Forest of Dean but bottled it and the whole thing went rather bitty.I had a look at Fleet Pond on Saturday morning mostly in the hope of finding a Lesser Spotted Woodpecker.  No joy.  Common wildfowl showing nicely in the sunshine, mugging families for bread, plus a relatively placid Goosander redhead a mere fifty yards away: big flock of Lesser Redpolls and a bigger one of Siskins.  Whoopee.I drove over to Greywell and found a shoot going on in the fields I wanted to work so gave up on that immediately and zipped up to Moor Green where the Little Owl was sitting out enjoying the warmth from the sun and a cracking male Bullfinch was boldly feeding underneath him.I wasn't really into the day and knocked off for a cup of tea at home with my long-suffering wife.  Then I fell asleep in front of the TV for an hour (in the middle of the day? - definitely something wrong with me) and dragged my sorry ass out late afternoon for another round with the Moor Green Barn Owls, which effortlessly outsmarted me at every turn despite giving me views down to about twenty yards at times.Determined to get a pic of some sort out of the afternoon I headed over to the canal where a single Badger was using the very last of the afterglow to rampage backwards across the landscape with great armfuls of bedding.  It was tempting to assume a male chauvinist boar was sleeping peacefully below ground with the adolescents while mum did the housework.  I had anticipated bright moonlight but of course a local cloud blocked that out leaving me struggling to focus, but I did get one nice shot which will be on here in due course unless I get a better one.  As soon as I gave up for the night and set off home the cloud cleared to leave a perfect view of a blazing full moon with Mars showing clearly in the sky above it.Sunday was mostly domestic stuff but I did have another try for the Barn Owls.  They again showed well but wouldn't permit photographs, but a Green Sandpiper flying round at dusk went onto the year list and a Roebuck in velvet went into the camera at ISO1600 and a sixth of a second, considering which I was pleased with the result.  Actually considering what the light was like I was astonished at the result.While all this was going on I was also watching three adult Red Foxes across the fields and gravel pits.  One, which I think was the big bushy male that hangs around the reserve a lot of the time, was mousing/voling in long grass in the owl box field.Further West on one of the high berms that keeps the residents secure from the sights and sounds of gravel extraction, a cock Pheasant was standing surveying the area.  Scanning the slope to the right I found a dog fox sauntering about in full view of the Pheasant, dashing this way and that, sitting down for a period then trotting back the other way for a few yards.  I couldn't figure out what he was up to until I scanned a bit left of the Pheasant and spotted a second, seemingly slightly smaller fox, sitting quietly but tensely just below the lip of the bank, a mere ten yards from the Pheasant.  I reckon the dog fox was trying to create enough of a distraction for his mate to nail the Pheasant.Now I can't recall any examples of co-operative hunting between Red Foxes but if that wasn't what I was seeing, then I don't know what it was.  Eventually the Pheasant walked off right, after which the two foxes briefly met up - peaceably, I'm sure it was a pair - then headed off in different directions to continue hunting.I knocked off quite satisfied with having seen an interesting bit of behaviour.John</blockquote>

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