Quick update

Thank you so much for arriving at this blog.

I'll give you a quick update.

I moved my blog to

www.appletonwildlifediary.wordpress.com

in October 2015.

Since then I have posted about Badgers, Barn owls, Sparrowhawks, a day at the Wildlife Crime Conference, the Big garden Bird watch, hares and lots of trail camera clips.
Please visit my new blog

Thank you

Alex

Taken by Oxford Mail

Merry Christmas and Wild New Year

If you have turned up at this site, thank you, but I now have a new blog site.

https://appletonwildlifediary.wordpress.com/


Please come and have a look and follow if you like it

Merry Christmas and Wild New Year

Alex


Twitter        @Appletonwild

Facebook    Appleton Wildlife Diary

Instagram   Appletonwild

New blog now on Wordpress

I have started a new blog on Wordpress.

I will be keeping this one as it has all my old posts but blogging on Wordpress from now on.

It is still not quite finished but please go and have a look, and follow if you like it.

www.appletonwildlifediary.wordpress.com

Thanks

Alex

Spider and the fly

Just as I was walking past our conservatory, a fly flew straight in front of me and landed in a cobweb, it started to struggle, going round and round trying it's hardest to get away.

The Spider ran down the web from where she was hiding out under the window,  she began to spin insanely round and round with the fly while wrapping the bottom half of the fly up in a few pieces of web.

Once the spider had secured the fly, it looked like she was feeding from the flies abdominal segment while the fly was thrashing it's legs about wildly.

After a bit the fly stopped moving so I ran inside to get a piece of white paper to put behind the window to make the photos clearer.

Richard Comont very kindly identified these as a house fly and a Zygiella x-notata (Missing Sector Orb Spider)

Spinning

It was both fascinating and disgusting at the same time!

Wrapped up

The spider then left the fly and went back to hiding under the window frame.
In this photo you can see the missing sectors in the web therefore the name Missing Sector Orb weaver spider.

I went to see Steve Backshall do a talk last night and one of the topics he was talking about was arachnophobia, he said in defense of spiders you have to think about how many flies there would be if there were no spiders

Evening falls on my local patch

Just after the sun set we took the dogs across the field for their last walk of the day.
As all the Rooks settled into the Rookery and the Greylag geese flew overhead back to Farmoor reservior, a Litttle Owl started to call out of the darkness.
The little owl's call became clearer when I wandered around the bend in the field, leading me to believe the owl was on the fence post in the field of cows.
Once the Little owl fell silent the only sounds left were our wellies squelching through the mud made by todays earlier rain, the dogs rustling through the grass and cars driving up and down a nearby road.

As the season changes and the temperature is dropping, it feels like I need to start wear gloves and a hat.

I'm never sure whether I like the pylons across the valley. They are an interesting and familar sight to me but I often find them annoying when I'm trying to take photos of birds and the wire keep getting in the way.

Lookout on the Rookery

In the distance the blue green glow of the landing lights at RAF Brize Norton mark how far I can see and tiny pinpricks of light show odd houses between the field I'm standing in and the town of Witney.

When heading home bats were swooping around a single oak tree trying to catch moths and the last of the insects, twisting and turning then disappearing back behind the oak tree.

Secret life of our allotment

Looking at all of the trails, tracks and signs I had an idea that we were getting a few different animals up on our allotment.

Yesterday I left the trail camera up at the allotment for 24 hours to see what happened.

First of all came a Green Woodpecker.

 Next, most of the activity was between 7pm and 9pm where a Hare came through one end of the allotment and hopped towards the other end, then lots of clips of rats and rabbits. It's a good job this part of the allotment only has fruit trees in it.

The rat is trying to carry away an apple.

This rabbit is doing a great impression of a Meerkat

We have definitely got a badger track through our allotment, I can see where the badger comes in from the brambles, walks through our allotment and out in to one of the unattended allotments opposite ours.
It was fantastic to actually get the badger on the trail camera. The first one came through around 2.30am, then another or the same one again at 5.30am.

Sunday autumnal walk

Today we had a family walk with the dogs from Bablockhyth along the Bridle way all the way to Cumnor which is a four mile walk there and back.

Bablockhyth was once the site of a ferry across to Northmoor first mentioned around 1212, it remained in use until the 1960's.

 I had plenty of time to slowly walk and take some shots of autumn, birds and the scenery.

As soon as we started to walk there was plenty of movement from the hedgerow all around, where lots of small birds were hopping about, including Robins, Chaffinches, Great tits, Blue tits, Tree creepers and Long tailed tits, all competing to be the loudest.

The Dunnock who sat at the top of the branch, singing and looking around won the competition

Flocks of birds were gathering in the ploughed fields near to where the path is, it's a bit difficult to tell what type of birds they are.

Along the footpath, the chattering of the Starlings and the loud shout of the Jays accompanied us.

 Greater spotted woodpeckers, pheasants, geese, different types of fungi and what looks like a well, hidden away, made it an interesting walk.

Once I got home I did some research on the well. It is called a Physic well, a Holy well or Sacred spring. It is around 5 feet deep and it has a reputation for 'being good for eye troubles' other than that there isn't much written about it.