Wildlife spotting

[gib]

hadn't heard of wall lizards before but they look absolutely amazing https://www.froglife.org/info-advice/amphibians-and-reptiles/wall-lizard/

[Twit 2]

Now that boating is no longer ver-boatin', I am out again once a week or so and seeing kingfishers every time. Big fat bastard kingfishers, relatively speaking. You know they're massive when you can properly see them and track them along the bank, instead of them being a blue blur. Love kingfishers. Best bird? Probably.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

I have an image of a fenland waterway glowing in dusken flames. Flames kindled by a malattended tealight.

In the ricocheted half-light of an ill-celebrated solstice, a kingfisher's cornea bounces an ember or two back at a feckless camerapeasant, wammed up on box cider.

[Twonty Gostelow]

Talking of kingfishers and curlews, I was filming a kingfisher on the River Teifi when a curlew walked past it. Each unfazed by the other.
Two video stills and a photo, not great but I was a fair distance away and the light was fading:

[Mr Eggs]

That is amazing.

[bgmnts]

That kingfisher beak could peck the fuck out of you right? Peck your eyes out.

[Buelligan]

Not really the focus or point of the halcyon bird though mate. 

Superb pics Twont, thank you, joy in the morning.

[paruses]

Ooh, nice - I taught up there for a while in 1995.  The daily bus journey from Aber was beautiful.

Does that come up through Corris or along the coast? I have to go to Corris quite often and never tire of the stretch past Cross Foxes. I like how different it is on the out and in journey.

[paruses]

Came across a sadly deceased white ermine moth the other day. If I can work out how to post pictures from a phone I will. Hadn't seen one before.

May resurrect my moth box even though I never had much success with it in the past (living in a well-lit urban environment at the time)

[Attila]

Based on Attilas advice and not being able to find a Lidl one we got a small Apeman wildlife camera.

Really impressed with it from the first nights use. Three cats and a squirrels tail were spotted. Thanks again. Have played with some of the settings and stuck it back in the same place.

Ah, brilliant -- it's been a good camera for us. The hedgehog party palace is doing booming business every night, loads of photos of the little spikey fruits. We've also got a young fox that comes by most nights (and, annoyingly, a new neighbourhood cat that comes round and eats quite a lot of the hedgehog kibble.)

We've got a live-feed camera that we haven't used in a while, but considering the traffic over the past couple of weeks, Mr Attila is planning to wire it back up.

[BlodwynPig]

That kingfisher beak could peck the fuck out of you right? Peck your eyes out.

That's a curlew, friend.

[bgmnts]

That's a curlew, friend.

I'm referring to the shorter beak. Longbeak looks unwieldy as a weapon.

[Cerys]

Does that come up through Corris or along the coast? I have to go to Corris quite often and never tire of the stretch past Cross Foxes. I like how different it is on the out and in journey.

Corris.  Made the early start worth every yawn.  One year it was snowing like mad on the journey home, so the bus had to stop there and a few of us would have had to walk to Mach if it weren't for a lovely person and their car.

[phes]

If you slowed the rain call down so it was twice as long, it'd be more like that.

Is it a clean sounding call like a peep or whistle or a vibrating rasping sound?

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

A large rat has just skipped across our lawn and disappeared under the shed. That explains why our dog Ben has been so fascinated by that corner of the garden lately. No time to take pics, sorry.

[Attila]

At least three different hedgehogs in the party palace last night, including one with a really long nose.

Mr Attila and I were faffing about in the garden this afternoon and heard something rummaging in the flowers/roses along the fence, and it was a rare daytime sighting. Little dude just bumbling along, then disappeared in the hole we've got between our garden and the neighbours (we think they're living back in brambles in the corner of her garden).

We've got a cctv type mini camera that for a while we had aimed at the hole in the fence, but haven't set it up yet this year. The little guys come by so regularly that we might set it up again.

[bgmnts]

Catching a little glimpse of a new creature is literally the best part of my day now.

No social or professional life to get in the way of the sheer appreciation of nature in its purest diversity* and splendour.



*well, mallards, crows and rabbits.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Heron doing some evening sploshing.

Mother Duck with it's children

And oddly, 3 young shire horses that had broken out of a field and reached the south side of the canal towpath. They were having fun, munching on sweet, sweet adventure but had that unmistakable look of 3 gangly kids knowing they were up to no good.

[ZoyzaSorris]

I've been awakened to the biodiversity of my garden recently by that fella who was doing the hoverfly species recording, been doing likewise and finding it very meditative. Also astounded at the range of solitary bees and wasps (the verbwhores of the Hymenoptera world) out there doing their thing. And a bit obsessed / unnerved by the sheer range and quantity of brood parasites / parasitoid wasps amongst their number, it's amazing anything survives out there. Interesting stuff.

[Buelligan]

Catching a little glimpse of a new creature is literally the best part of my day now.

No social or professional life to get in the way of the sheer appreciation of nature in its purest diversity* and splendour.



*well, mallards, crows and rabbits.

Key to any successful life.  Nirvana soon[nb]or not, it doesn't matter.[/nb]!

[jobotic]

Walk with the kids in a country park yesterday. Daughter found a worm on a leaf and gently put it by a bush. Juvenile robin popped out and grabbed it. She was a bit upset until she started enjoying the robin hopping about near us, apparently not bothered.

Wish I was better at birdsong though. Blackbirds and chaffinches no bother, but something was really going for it in the woods and I couldn't see it so don't know who it was.

Tufted ducks on the lake - get in!

[phes]

Robins are often very bold around humans, aren't they.

[jobotic]

yeah they are, but not seen such a young one so close before. Had no red feathers but speckled ones, which a quick internet search tells me means it's less than three months old.

[phes]

Yes, coincidentally a friend mailed me this from a ringing session last week with a 'guess this bird...'

[jobotic]

Lovely!

When we sat down to eat some snacks there were loads of these around. Peacock caterpillars. They live on nettles so I don't know why they were all out in the open. Perhaps they're getting ready to pupate. Hopefully on next visit there'll be a lot of peacock butterflies fluttering about. (I don't know how long it takes).

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

Robins are often very bold around humans, aren't they.

Fucking provocative

[phes]

I used to walk through a park where the robins would hang around in gangs of 3 or 4. They'd just stand there on the bricked edge of flower beds in a row, staring at you as you walked past. Fucking Manchester.

[Blue Jam]

Went for a walk around a few lochs and saw lots of cute ickle babies. D'awwwww:







Used the digital zoom on my phone's camera and kept my distance. Swans are hardnuts and there was also an untitled goose I really didn't want to piss off.

[Spoon of Ploff]

Think this is a young Long Tailed Tit. There was a family of them moving back and forth through the canopy. Same spot as I've seen wrens, gold crests, and stonechats black caps. It's like a Wetherspoons for birdies.


^{I will destroy you human}

[Buelligan]

And those are some of my most favourite, right from my first bird-knowledge.  It's the nests, you see?

Beauty picture, that.  Has the Spirit of Tit in it.