Garden Wildlife Photos, by Peter Loud

Garden Wildlife Photos,
Milton Keynes

More Photos

Moorhen feeding chick

I don't regard myself as a wildlife photographer. They are a specialist breed with expensive long lenses and lots of patience. I have a few, assorted 20+ year old, lenses costing between £40 & £100 from eBay. These photos are from my small garden.

Moorhen chicks

This is one of a brood of 7. Within 10 days they were reduced to 4 by a greedy pike, hungry heron or a local cat.

In 2012, there were 4 broods of chicks,
None of them survived more than a week, I think it was a pike that got them.

Moorhens fighting for territory

Male Emperor Dragonfly and Blue-tailed Damselfly, 2017

Female Emperor Dragonfly, 2017

Male Four Spotted Chaser Dragonfly, 2017

Brown Hawker Dragonfly, 2017

Pike
I was sitting in my garden having a cup of tea, then these appeared in front of me.
I see them most years in late March or early April.

They were back again in 2016.

This pike was just under a metre long, Sept, 2016.

Grey Heron, Ardea cinerea
Incidentally, this and most of the photos here, were taken on a 2008, Sony A850, with a 30+ year old Minolta 70-210mm lens.
It is a terrible camera for photographing birds in flight. It has only 9 auto-focus points and shoots at 3 frames per second. Everything has to be preset manually.

This heron had just caught this fish.

The heron hangs around when there are new moorhen chicks or ducklings, but I've never seen it eat one.
One day I watched it catch and swallow two rats. My camera was manually pre-set for catching it in flight
in a different place, so I didn't get any decent photos. This time I did a bit better. Then a few days later did it again.

Heron being attacked by goose, marina, MK

Newly hatched cygnets, garden, marina, MK

Newly hatched cygnets, 2010, and 2011 below.

In 2010 there were 8 eggs, 7 hatched, one cygnet disappeared in the first week.

Newly hatched cygnet, garden, marina, MK

In 2011 there were 9 eggs, 9 hatched. One cygnet disappeared in the first week, another after 3 weeks.

Newly hatched cygnets, 2012.

In 2012 there were 8 eggs, all hatched, but after two weeks, five cygnets suddenly disappeared.
I have no idea what happened to them.

Cygnet beaking out of egg, garden, marina, MK

Cygnet breaking out of egg, 2014.

In 2014 there were 7 eggs, six hatched successfully. The seventh half hatched but appears to have been crushed or suffocated.
In 2015 someone released oil into the marina while the swans were building their nest. They became coated in oil and left without laying.

Male Swan, Cob.

Female Swan, Pen.

Canada Geese invade the marina.

Swan attacks goose

Canada Goose and goslings, garden, marina, MK

Canada Goose and goslings, 2015

Canada Goose and ducklings, garden, marina, MK, 2019

Canada Goose with ducklings, 2019
While the goose was sitting on seven of her own eggs these ducklings hatched out nearby.
I couldn't see any sign of the mother duck. It seemed that the ducklings couldn't either and.
decided that the goose was their mother, the goose took the ducklings under her wing for the night.

Canada Goose and goslings, garden, marina, MK, 2019

Canada Goose with newly hatched goslings, 2019
A week or two after sheltering the ducklings the goose hatched her goslings.

An Ordinary Bumble Bee
I don't have any specialist gear for taking close-ups.
I just used my 70-210mm tele. lens at max. zoom and minimum focusing distance.

I don't know which bee this is :-(

A Hoverfly, (syrphid)

Common Tern
A regular summer feeder at the marina, but is difficult to photograph, they won't keep still.

Signal Crayfish, Pacifastacus leniusculus
Yes, this was taken in my garden. There are crayfish in the marina.

Beans from my garden

Aquilegia

Green Shield Stink Bugs, (Palomena Prasina, family Pentatomid).

This week, (Sept.'12), I bought some extension tubes which allow me to get higher magnification for these flies and bugs. My apologies if I am over-doing the Stink Bugs. I have a good selection of water birds in my garden, but I have very, very few small creepy-crawlies. These stink bugs are great, they don't fly off, they hang around the same patch on my beans. I almost know them by name ;-)

I was puzzled by the different stink bugs that I saw, then one day, as I waited for my kettle to boil,
I looked at my beans and caught a stink bug moulting. A day later the new bright green bug had returned to black & green.

Hoverfly, (I think).

Blue-tailed Damselfly, 2013

Common blue Damselfly, 2013

Damselfly, Banded Demoiselle, 2013

Red Damselfly, 2020

Just ordinary ducklings
Nine ducklings were hatched, within 10 days all of them had disappeared,
eaten by the voracious pike, a hungry heron, or a local cat.

Occasionally there are other birds around, but I don't have any good photos of them.