#ring ouzel

(Ring ouzel)

Ring Ouzel - Melro-de-colar (Turdus torquatus alpestris)

Sintra/Portugal (23/11/2021)

10 of my favourite pictures to take in October 2020 

1. Speckled Wood butterfly at Lakeside Country Park, Hampshire 

2. Red Deer at Bushy Park, London 

3. My first ever Wilson’s Phalarope at Pennington, Hampshire 

4. A scene with nice red autumnal leaves in near to the house 

5. Yellow autumn leaves at Lakeside 

6. A view at Leaden Hall in the New Forest 

7. Mute Swan at Lakeside 

8. Mushroom at Pig Bush in the New Forest 

9. The tree visible from my room with yellow autumnal leaves 

10. My favourite mushroom the red fly agaric at Pig Bush in the New Forest 

Well there we have it, with 10 photos the maximum amount for a Tumblr photoset this is the last of these posts from me this year! Thanks for all your support for them as I reflected both through my photos and some writing on some of the most extraordinary months of mine and all of our lives! Synonymous of my working from home days is yet again obvious photos I was proud of for this list missed out with so many I took in October. 

And October for me was a month of landmarks, colour and life. As these photos show the dominant theme in my month was capturing autumnal colour in mushrooms and coloured leaves on trees and increasingly on the ground as the month went on especially. Where autumn was still just coming on in September really, in October everything around me looked so ripe and full of varied colour. In varied weather between overcast, sunny and wet I took a set of landscape pictures I was really happy with too and many sky ones with the sun now setting on our weekend walks a bit. 

The personal landmark moments for me this month were really all down to wildlife, particularly some key trips for the month. Our annual Bushy Park visit for Red Deer watching in the rut, birds and more was the standout moment for my October as it always is, that day I saw iconic wildlife in a brilliant location which I love so much and took over 60 pictures which was a lot. Then that very next day we saw one of Hampshire’s birds of the year catching up with and watching the Wilson’s Phalarope at Pennington incredibly close to us, with one of the also rare Grey Phalaropes it was with so that was a monumental weekend. The weekend that followed ended in another Grey Phalarope sighting at Gilkicker Point on the pond a quirk of the month as always at this time of year that lots of these birds turned up in Hampshire thanks to some adverse weather. The day before Gilkicker it was a brilliant New Forest trip to Ashley Walk and Leaden Hall seeing my first Ring Ouzels of the year and first pigs out for pannage on the way back by Bramshaw. A theme that resonated into last weekend too as we visited Pig Bush and Rockford Common in the New Forest and saw pigs at the former too seeing more than every before. Those days were landmarks as I took 45 pictures each day and had two of my best ever days for mushrooms just seeing mushrooms everywhere I looked and taking so many pictures of them, with so many other pictures taken too. 

So its been another top bird month and great mammal one too throughout with Roe Deer sightings at Lakeside standing out too, and a few butterflies, dragonflies, moths and flowers certainly hung on its not what you would always associate with October but I enjoyed some great moments with those too and each day I was so lucky whilst working from home to get out into the natural world and enjoy autumn all around me. 

November obviously may be a little different as we enter lockdown again or fuller lockdown in England. I outlined what this means for me and my hobby at this stage anyway in my blog post of my day last night: https://dansnaturepictures.tumblr.com/post/633537805171195905/31102020-lymington-and-photos-in-the-garden but I just wanted to say here that when Thursday comes I shall be doing on Dans_Pictures some additional weekday tweets with past photos of mine to any photos I take on the days, for the first five week days a return of my #AButterflyADay tweets which I did early in the first lockdown, then five days of #ABirdADay, #AnInsectADay (other ones to butterflies) and #AFlowerADay to take me up to the 2nd December when lockdown is planned to lift which should hopefully give me some focus to help me roll through the days a bit if the time of the restrictions imposed and everything I look forward to once they lift slows my days down a bit as did happen early in the last lockdown and maybe it will bring some brightness to other people’s days too and most of the photos I use will be taken this year. 

And on that note in December when we get there my usual 10 Wildlife/Photography highlights of the year posts will go out this year with 10 of them and a bonus 11th too for 2020 in what’s been a strange and high photo and walk yielding year for me thanks to working from home for most of it. There will also be on Twitter this year 11 of “My 4 favourite ..... pictures” taken in 2020 across categories coming after the highlights blogs from 27th December. However, like I always do in December if I get low photo yields or low amounts of tweets required to upload a day’s photos at weekends, in November if I have that on Saturdays or Sundays due to the lockdown I will bring some of these tweets forward I will only do that four times in November to leave three for any such days in December and at the very least keep four one a day to post on 27th, 28th, 29th and 30th December when they were intended. On New Year’s Eve they’ll also be my first and last bird and photo tweets and one picture I was proud to take each month tweets with my Christmas and New Year edits of my photos getting postings in December too.