JamesT

I like the images, though it seems like rather an ugly pile. Is the wing in the first and last images ruined or a folly extension?

It looks like there's a bit of delamination on the left wing case.

I've only seen them before in old paintings. I assume that in the early days of mechanical clocks, the mechanism of coaxial shafts with different rotation rates had not been invented (and also the very early clock didn't keep good time anyway).

Childrey church clock. Ferrania P30, Canon EOS-3, Canon EF 28-135. It does seem that Ferrania's advice not to use automatic cameras is good, the powered rewind of the EOS-3 sounded really nasty and many of the negatives do have scratches (there are some visible here, but not too many).

A little bit of extra information: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/aug/06/country-diary-flying-ant-day-is-here-there-and-everywhere

Thanks everyone. There certainly weren't as many as I have seen sometimes, but I think I only caught the end of the emergence (typically the peak lasts for less than an hour).

This evening, I just caught the end of the flying ants by the shed.

1 is the bread knife, but it's sickle then scythe. Here are some quick shots from a more familiar angle: 1) Bread knife 2) Sickle 3) Scythe All very much working blades.

I assume it was either a long telephoto or a superzoom camera. Well done to get the exposure under control, it's so easy to overexpose that sort of shot because of the dark sky.

Afraid not. They are: Sickle, Bread Knife and Scythe -- but in which order?

Size is about right (at least for one), but no. Sometime tomorrow, if there aren't any ID's I'll give a list and let folks pick the order.

Sorry, not even close.

These three shot to finish off a roll didn't really work out how I wanted them, but I think they make an interesting challenge. All are macro shots of different blades, but of what? 1) 2) 3)

Probably cats in most cases. I don't know if the starling had been injured by a cat, but if the kite hadn't got it then unless I'd got it into a box to recover, a cat would have had it. Even if I'd had a camera I don't think I would have got a shot as the kite came from behind me and it was over in a split second almost before I realized what was happening.

Thanks everyone. Just had a really close encounter with one. I'd gone up the garden to dump the tea leaves in the composter and noticed an injured or sick juvenile starling that didn't fly off as I walked past. I intended to see if I could see anything obviously wrong on the way back, but I never got a chance. As I turned round a kite swooped in over my shoulder dived over the goosberry bush and took off again, with something in its talons (and no starling on the lawn).

That's just gorgeous.

Great shot of one of our most colourful birds. Dd you know that even in relatively-recently planted woodland, around half of the trees are planted by jays?

There's something approachable about those little engines, and pretty much no two are alike.

Thanks everyone. I'm surprised at folks not having seen any recently. Even before I dug the pond (not quite a year ago), I'd often see movement when cutting the grass near the fence, stop to check and find a frog that needed to be encouraged to a safer place (or a patch that had to be left). I think they hibernate under the shed (or did, they probably go to the bottom of the pond now).

The tadpoles in my pond are now at various stages of development: Some have legs but still have tails: While others are moving to land: I think this is the out-of-focus one in the above image.

Thanks everyone. The usual "birding" set up of Canon 70D and Sigma 150-600. I'm only about 30 miles (as the kite flies) from where they were re-introduced at Aston Rowant about 30 years ago so they are quite abundant here. I have seen as many as half a dozen at a time along the street. They do seem to be spreading right across the country, but fairly slowly.

Spotted while the kite had drifted out of range.

From the back garden.

Impressive-looking beast. It's interesting how American (and European) locos have much more external pipework than British ones.

It is a tricky one, I had to pore over the images and ID marks on the Dragonflies & Damselflies website for quite a while before I was convinced as to which I had.