Your move... Stand-off between fox and magpie is caught on camera
A stand-off between a fox and a magpie at a Black Country beauty spot led to a dilemma for the keen amateur photographer who captured the encounter.
He said: "I was expecting the fox to pounce, and I'd decided I'd carry on taking pictures if it did, although, at the same time, I was dreading it.
"But in the end, there was no attack. I watched them for almost 15 minutes and the staring competition went of for most of that time. It was incredible to see."
Civil servant Steve Kendrick took the shot at Sandwell Valley, near the RSPB centre in Great Barr, just before the light started to fade.
"I'd been dying to get out all day but I'd had to wait in for a mattress to be delivered. I got there at around 3pm and had gone to the bird hide at the RSPB centre hoping to catch sight of an oyster-catcher but I had no luck.
"I started walking and after a while I came across the fox on the far side of a field, about 300yards away. I've got quite a good zoom on my camera and when I had a look through the lens I could see it was observing a magpie that was no more than a foot away.
"The magpie was among five or six birds pecking around the grass and it was also obviously aware of the fox. It was a fascinating few moments. It would have been morbid if there had been an attack but that's nature, and they say you shouldn't intervene in that kind of scenario. But thankfully, nobody got eaten."
The 44-year-old, from Chuckery, Walsall, took up photography as a hobby nearly seven years ago, after a while borrowing his father's Canon single lens reflex camera to take pictures.
The father-of-one also visits Walsall Arboretum, near his home, to look for photographic subjects.
