I am surrounded by Czech wildlife and have managed to photograph some of the animals in the Czech Republic that have strayed into my garden or that I have seen nearby. Plenty more have remained elusive; it is not easy to photograph bats, fireflies, or the many birds of prey that circle around my house.
A slightly fuzzy photo of a humming bird-hawk-moth taken outside my kitchen window in September 2016. What a beauty. Thanks to David A. Hill I found out that it is a Tau Emperor Aglia tau L.Not in a hole but happily sitting under a log, hopefully this huge toad is taking care of some of the insect pests in my garden.This cheeky little vole was quite happy to let me get pretty close and take photos.Let us prey… I always thought these interesting insects were tropical – but no. This praying mantis was alive and well and living about 15km from my house.Mice are fine when they are playing in the garden but not so nice when they turn up in your kitchen.This beauty flew into my garden and kindly landed quite close so that I could shoot him with a normal lens.A muflon, apparently heavily pregnant, was happily eating grass when I shot her. The muflon is an introduced species – introduced to be shot – though by people with guns, not cameras.This black stork was fishing in the little stream outside my house. When he saw me, he flew away and this, sadly, is the best picture I got of him.Ticks are nasty little creatures that are capable of sucking your blood and maybe give you some very nasty diseases. Watch out for them.Sadly slightly out of focus but no less frightening. I had a hornets’ nest in my attic. Fortunately, hornets leave the nest in autumn and don’t return so I left them in peace – and the hornets returned the favour.Many of the forests in the Czech Republic are the home of these wonderful creatures – wild boar. Those babies are so cute!Look what flew into my garden! A Camberwell beauty as it is known in the UK. In America it is known as Morning Cloak. A beautiful butterfly whatever you choose to call it.Looking for somewhere to overwinter, this striking salamander crawled his way through my garden.The first time I saw a firefly in my back garden I though someone was walking along with a cigarette. The ‘cigarette’ then flew into the air and I realised what it was. There are lots of fireflies that live in my valley and they are stunningly beautiful – sadly the photo can’t do them justice.
