Your day's wildlife

[annedonnelly]

Is that where they go for the winter?

Before it was known about birds migrating people thought that swallows went underwater in streams and hibernated in the mud over the winter. I think I've seen drawings of them supposedly emerging from the stream in the spring.

 

[anothersam]

I've probably got a couple thousand pictures of the many generations of rabbits which have kept us company over the years. Thank god for digital or I'd be broke.

Salad bar

Everywhere you look there's lunch. Would you like a slug with that?

Paging John Updike

Paging Mills & Boon

This is what can happen when you don't use protection

Rapidly approaching cute overload

I call this one Scary Rabbit

Even scarier. Intruder alert: stoat

Another observer of the local fauna. More lambs than you can shake a stick at here

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43b21eDeg3c

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SOL87t70Tq0

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxmYwOotqY4

Loses dramatic tension after about the two minute mark...

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RYavKXZhtwM

Here they are again, with bonus exploration footage

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUEjQTdf8_c

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Bluebells in the woods today.

 

[Alex H]

Got back yesterday from a couple of days on the Isle D'Oléron

The Marais aux Oiseaux is a bird preserve located in the marshes in the middle of the island. About 7 hectares is fenced in for visitors to explore and the rest
(another 40+ hectares is not open to humans ) The reserve also contains a rescue / rehabilitation centre for injured birds / animals. Well worth the 3.70€ entrance fee. There are only 2 aviaries which house a couple of owls and a falcon. As you can see from the photos, the birds know where they get fed and protected.

 

[Alex H]

Part 2

 

[slowmotion]

[QUOTE 3660856, member: 9609"]does the male roost overnight in the box ?[/QUOTE]
He's never done so yet. This afternoon two of the eggs hatched and Mr Tit was quite busy bringing grubs to feed them. He always gives them to his partner who then puts them into the open mouths of the newborns. Mrs Tit is still sitting on the eggs with the new arrivals underneath her. I'm amazed that they don't get squashed or smothered.

 

[andytheflyer]

Mrs Blue Tit has been sitting on the eleven eggs for about nine days, virtually continuously, day and night. She nips out for a few minutes for a break. Mr Tit brings her a snack every once in a while but doesn't hang around. If the books are correct, the eggs will hatch within the next week. Anyway, here she is, shuffling her eggs about and getting comfortable......
[media]

View: https://vimeo.com/125866362?utm_source=email&utm_medium=clip-transcode_complete-finished-20120100&utm_campaign=7701&email_id=Y2xpcF90cmFuc2NvZGVkfDQ5NzY2YWU4YjFlMzQxMzI0OTc2MzQ2ZDRjZDQzMDdmMTA5fDM3OTg1NzI1fDE0Mjk4NDI5MjV8NzcwMQ%3D%3D
[/media]

Edit: It's worth turning the volume up.

Hope they have better luck than the 2 blackbird chicks that were following mum around my garden yesterday. Eating my Cornflakes in the conservatory this morning there was a flash of mottled beige and white feathers across my field of view, followed by feathers and an huge racket of squawking blackbirds. There are a few downy black feathers on the ground now but having seen a decidedly motheaten-looking adult male a few minutes ago, they may be his and the chicks survived. Will have to keep my eye open for the chicks - although I suspect they'll be keeping a low profile if the sparrowhawk is still hungry! Not the first time we've been visited - a pigeon met its end on the lawn a couple of years ago, and we looked into each others eyes last year when I rolled up the drive to find the 'hawk dismantling another woody. Sparrowhawk wasn't bothered at all. Just got on with lunch.

Tough world out there.


Update - both BB chicks been seen with dad. Phew. But I suppose there's a sparrowhawk chick somewhere still hungry!

 

[biggs682]

Just spent half hour doing some watering in the garden and found this big bee doing his / her job on our apple tree

 

[growingvegetables]

Saw my first swallows of the year - YEEEEESSSSSS! Summer's round the corner.

A "flock" of lapwings - sad that seeing half-a-dozen counts as a "flock" these days.

And a red kite being buzzed by a plucky wee black-headed gull. Like a 1950s Battle of Britain film - only thing missing was the vapour trails!

 

[Soltydog]

104 miles today, on the way to the sportive (20 mile drive) I saw a pair of buzzards, roe deer & a barn owl, whilst cycling I saw a red kite & that was about the only thing of interest

 

[Hyslop]

2 Swallow on Burgh Marsh this afternoon,which made a windy ride very worthwhile.They are in fact the first that I at least have seen this year.Offhand,Im not sure,.but memory say that they were a week earlier in 2014.More to come though!If any of you know the shelter at Boustead Hill,then you have the ideal viewing point given that there is a pond just across the road.Unusually,no Buzzards today at any of their usual haunts.The downside was finding a broken Starlings egg in the garden.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Sat and watched a male lapwing displaying in a field not far from us this morning on our Sunday ride. Several other cyclists went passed and never questioned what 2 cyclists were watching in a field.

 

[Hyslop]

Amazing isnt it?Both the Lapwings and the cyclists!I could watch Lapwings all day and fortunately, round here I can do just that,though one of my favourite spots, a field with 5 nests(that I could see)has just been entirely ploughed,all gone sadly.This mind you is the same rustic bunch who slash their hedges in the breeding season.You can tell by looking which fields are theirs,and the farm.....is filthy!

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

Amazing isnt it?Both the Lapwings and the cyclists!I could watch Lapwings all day and fortunately, round here I can do just that,though one of my favourite spots, a field with 5 nests(that I could see)has just been entirely ploughed,all gone sadly.This mind you is the same rustic bunch who slash their hedges in the breeding season.You can tell by looking which fields are theirs,and the farm.....is filthy!

It is desperately sad regarding the field and eggs. Around here there are areas unploughed completely, including some fields that appear to be just grass (as a meadow for the 2nd year) and also large field edges where the fields have been ploughed for potatoes. But a wide wildlife refuge had been left. This one was displaying over a patch of land that had been abscond abandoned for a long time between several field, all of which where grass, so ideal territory.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

I saw half a dozen lapwings on Saturday and stopped to watch!

I also found some larvae in my pond and thought they were great diving beetle larvae (vicious little @@!!$&s) so I squashed them. I then found some empty larvae cases which got me wondering so when I found some more live ones I looked more closely and decided they were dragonfly larvae. Sorry to those ones I sent to an early grave. I promise to take more care in future.