Sometimes you hit the limit of physics and your kit, the outcome is, ahem, aesthetically underwhelming to say the least, but you have captured a beautiful memory and that’s all that ever really matters. Here are some technically awful, through a window, ISO crazy, super slow shutterspeed (1/20th on a 400 lens with extender, ISO 64,000 for the photographers among you) grab shots of an utterly charming dusk encounter with a little russet-furred, round eared field vole that has made its home near our patio.
A favourite prey species of pretty much everything bigger than itself, including Barn Owls and Kestrels, I first identified this as the little short-tailed field vole (Microtus agrestis) , but the russet fur and round ears suggests he is actually a Bank Vole (Myodes glareolus). (S)he used clever predator avoidance tactics including hiding, freezing and zooming and taking varied circuitous routes round my collection of pollinator pots to harvest bittercress flowers, dandelion leaves and gnaw through a gone to seed dandelion flowerhead, which took quite some doing for the tiny creature working to stock its larder.
I quietly watched for some time, just enjoying the moment, before eventually reaching for my camera. Its certainly made me halt my plans to weed the cracks between my patio flagstones. Who knew that a few pollinator pots could bring my patio alive in such an unexpected way?
Short-tailed field vole using our guttering as cover before venturing out
Short-tailed field vole harvesting a gone to seed Dandelion flowerhead
Short-tailed field volves have much rounder ears than mice.
Short-tailed field vole battling with a gone to seed Dandelion flowerhead