By the feeders

 Yesterday, early afternoon, and I drew a deck chair up by our bird feeders and sat there. Cup of coffee (yes, I've started drinking coffee again, but decaff') by my side, Em-5 Mk11 with the generally maligned, but I think it is a fabulous lens, Olympus 75-300 attached. The mission was to photograph Bank Vole Myodes glareolus, a very small mammal.

I'm an opportunist photographer usually. I rarely plan what I'm going to shoot, just have the gear with me most of the time and photograph what I come across. But getting pix of small mammals nearly always does require some planning. In this case the planning has been easy. The Bank Voles have been very active by the bird feeders for at least the last week and the bird feeders are in view from the kitchen table. Observations have taken place every lunch time. Initially the voles were running across from the other side of the gate to grab the sunflower seeds. More recently they have established a base on the feeder side of the gate and are stashing seeds away inside the wall. Through watching over several lunchtimes I'd discovered which were their favoured stashing places and their routes too and fro.

I hoped my presence much closer to the wall, with the inevitably accompanying hound, would not put the voles off, after all Louise mowing the lawn the other day had not seemed to bother them. I need not have worried. 

It was relatively easy to get shots of the voles leaving the hole in the wall, much more tricky capturing them as they arrived.

Myodes glareolus Bank Vole.

 Whilst sat there the birds were relatively undisturbed as well and I took a few shots of a few species.

Wren

Greenfinch.

Coal Tit.

House Sparrow.