Group wander around blashford. A list which is not edited. I.e some duplicate entries in there, it happens.... Highlights : bittern swallow . I never saw the redpoll. (I wasn't convinced tbh).
A Swallow ? how confident are you on that ? the exodus from SA is not normally until end of Feb and it takes them about 40 days, so this one was is stupidly early, probably won't survive.
Today I managed to get my first photo of an owl in the wild . A pair of Little Owls at Cassiobury Park.
I had to interrupt my ride home from Pilates last night to stand and listen to a pair of Tawny owls calling back & forth to each other.
Wow, the owls calling, were really loud here too... I guess a bit of sap rising, combined with a good clear night for hunting. Went out to fetch something from the yard, and it sounded like two people doing, very bad impressions of an owl. It's hilarious, cos you can join in with very poor imitation of owl hoots tooo - almost literally "too - wit - t'wooo" and they will respond. Feels a bit naughty really
Update: I gave up on checking skips, bit the bullet and shelled out for some 150mm by 25mm rough-sawn Siberian Larch. Picked it up on the 21st from the Russkie importers in the wild east of Boston. Placated my chauffeuse by allowing some shopping time in Brexit Central, including nearly £14 of excellent cakes to take away from Diva's, ate some delicious fish and chips in bright warm sunshine at Sunny's Plaice in Heckington, and stopped off to explore Sleaford's charity shops. Roughed out the design on Friday, built the nest box over the weekend, and discovered that the reason the camera in a nest box bought for about £20 in Lidl clearance a couple of years ago had never worked was a dodgy transformer (again and again - HMHB lyric). Another transformer from an unused digibox worked fine, so on Monday the box was adapted for the camera - full colour in daylight, night vision in monochrome, and decent sound. A small box emptied of dates over Christmas will keep the camera wires away from exploratory beaks and claws, if it's ever occupied. Original plan was to position the box at the weekend with neighbours' assistance, but not liking the look of the weather, Mrs Poacher and I got it into place on Thursday morning, just before a downpour. Twenty metres of cable reaches the neighbours' kitchen TV quite neatly - they're delighted, even though I tried to dial back the enthusiasm by estimating the chance of first-year occupation at ~5%. Anyway, here are some pics. The last pic was taken this morning; it seems to have stayed firm during the overnight gales. On the actual wildlife front, a pair of Mallard have been visiting the garden over the last few days, checking out the suitability of an overgrown hedge for nesting ( I guess), and doing a sterling job of clearing the pond of floating duckweed.
Just a wander down the park today ; 175 black tailed godwit 171 oystercatcher 25 Brent goose 20 sanderling 6 turnstone 2 Mediterranean gull .
Pair of Mallard which have been visiting almost daily for the last ten days. They've done a great job of cleaning the pond, but I really hope they don't decide to nest here. They've visited around this time for the last three years (fairly sure it's the same pair), but had the good sense to nest elsewhere. I had enough wood left over from the owl box to knock together a Kent style bat roost. It'll go under the eaves in a sheltered spot in the corner of the East wall and a chimney breast, where it'll have sun until noon, and about as far away from the owl box as possible(!), but it'll have to wait until I've completed some repointing. Probably about as much chance of being used as the owl box, but better than the bits languishing in the timber store.
