Cute and Wholesome Picture Thread

[Jubal]

Recentish ones (about 10 days ago) from the Vienna woods

This I think is a female blackcap, just a cute shot:



Two battle tanks of their kind - a lesser stag beetle (or possibly a female greater stag), and an absolutely humongous boar:


On the floral side there were some nice columbines around the place:


And some other fun flowers as well:


Possibly the real treat of the trip was this black woodpecker which was bizarrely unfazed by me taking a ton of shots of it - I guess not much would really threaten them, they're the size of a crow almost and not many animals will want to take on something that big armed with a very large drill on its face. It was happily hopping around poking into bits of dead wood for food.


And also some of the nicest kestrel shots I've ever managed to get, this one was also quite obliging and did a bit of preening while I watched.


All in all a good trip


Also from today, spoilered in case any arachnophobes are reading, I found a SUPER cute little zebra/jumping type spider on my terrace:

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

[Leafly]

These photographs are brilliant So many animals and plants, how cool!! What type of camera do you use Jubal?

[Jubal]

I use a Panasonic Lumix DC-TZ90. It's a very nice little compact camera - not too big and heavy, decent automatic systems. I rarely if ever play around with settings much, I probably should do: generally I'm just reliant on getting fairly close to the animals.

Another walk, this time on the Donauinsel at the north end of the island:

Essex skipper. V similar to Small Skipper, but this has black antenna tips so is Essex.	Frog, probably pool frog though I can't tell pool and marsh frogs apart easily.
Silverwashed fritillary, one of the bigger butterflies around.	A great banded grayling, Brintesia circe: this was a new species for me. Very goth looks.
A Marbled White butterfly: these were very common & on the wing everywhere.	A nine spotted moth, also known as yellow-belted burnet. Not something I was v familiar with: very chic "modern household" looks somehow.
The nest of a penduline tit, probably the young have some time since fledged. These are really beautifully crafted hanging structures that the birds make. Sadly I didn't see any penduline tits whilst there, but it's nice to know they're around.	A self explanatory mute swan. There was a flock of about fifty on the side-stream of the Danube when I was there. Fifty birds isn't a big flock for most things, but fifty swans is an impressive looking flotilla.

[Leafly]

What a fantastic amount of animals and wildlife that you can see without travelling too far! The photos do look great, high quality and professional. You can see a lot of detail of these animals and insects. Great work Jubal! You take some awesome pictures and the ways these were presented on the white/grey background looks cool too!