Wildlife spotting

[jobotic]

Blue tit youth?

[Gurke and Hare]

Blue tit youth?

Great tit, I think - that's mostly based on the adults that were hanging around it.

[paruses]

Blue tit youth?

Glad you thought blue tit too. It's a great tit  but very much pretending to be a blue tit - even doing that crest thing.  Birds are absolute bastards.

A blackbird has taken to sunning itself in the same position of the lawn every day. It does that thing where it looks like it has a puncture and deflated but there is still air in the head and upper body. Seems like it is really enjoying life.

[Brian Freeze]

Had to shift a decapitated blackbird this week. Was at work and it was one of the ones that stop up all night singing to us. As it was warm we had the roller shutters open at the back and I heard some skriking as I went about my business and thought it sounded a little closer than usual but didnt stick my head out to investigate.

If I had I might have seen the culprit. A clean job with the removed item not in attendance. I half thought about asking them to have a sken at the CCTV

[paruses]

Interesting. And upsetting. But I was reminded that the headless corpse I mentioned upthread was a blackbird too. Folk round here now saying it was definitely a cat (in the way that people who aren't sure say things for definite)

[Brian Freeze]

I was a bit upset by it, especially as I could possibly have intervened.

Good news on the tadpole front though. The back legs are finally growing on some of them. I thought they grew out if the back end of the body but its out of the top end of the tail.
They are getting harder to watch now as they are quicker and more aware of shadows passing over the water.

After the dreadful footy last night I took the dog for a walk and was immediately cheered up by some excellent bat action. Just going down the lane from our house there were three of them feeding and zooming around at head height under the trees.

And then in the way that nature does that thing of giving and taking in almost the same breath, I had to take a blackbird carcass from the dog that she'd found. There seems to be a lot of them about. I've come to really appreciate them in last couple of years for having loads of personality and chutzpah.

[Brian Freeze]

We've been giving the tadpoles the odd bit of melon or melon rind and they go absolutly mad for it, the last slice we put in was getting pushed around the pond at an fair speed. It's a bit like when piranhas strip an animal in the films I imagine.

We did find a snail of the purest brown recently, the photo (not my hand) doesnt really do its browny loveliness justice but it was a thing of absolute beauty.



While looking for brown snails on the internet I found out about hairy snails. Ever seen one of them?

[BlodwynPig]

Great post. Love the snail

[paruses]

I think thats normal. Is it going into capture mode - does it take pics ? Check view mode

Thanks - saw this in the week but only just got a chance to check. Thought I would have a look at the view mode before sending it back in a huff. The root cause was that the SD card was a dud so it was erroring and shutting down every time. Have used it for covert surveillance on the dogs this afternoon whilst out (they just swap beds a lot). Going to get it set up in the garden for this evening - no doubt to watch hours of footage of a log. It's a start though!

p.s. also love the snail.

[BlodwynPig]

Thanks - saw this in the week but only just got a chance to check. Thought I would have a look at the view mode before sending it back in a huff. The root cause was that the SD card was a dud so it was erroring and shutting down every time. Have used it for covert surveillance on the dogs this afternoon whilst out (they just swap beds a lot). Going to get it set up in the garden for this evening - no doubt to watch hours of footage of a log. It's a start though!

p.s. also love the snail.

I'm thinking of buying a new one as well as the start up and switching between capture and view now take minutes instead of a few seconds. Plus I want a professional one.

[paruses]

I'm thinking of buying a new one as well as the start up and switching between capture and view now take minutes instead of a few seconds. Plus I want a professional one.

I realised you mean the SD card I think. If so - yes I am going to get a much better one. The dud was out of a dashcam that seemed to work but had been written to n thousand times and is obvs knackered now. The one that works is a 16gb cheapo but I want to get up and running and see how it does.

The garden is a bit shit as it's so enclosed but will be trialling it against the feeders tonight. Have a sight with some badgers and foxes - just need to let the slightly frightening man who also walks there know in case he comes across the camera and smashes it into a thousand pieces. Also - the lake I walked up to the other day for some swimming had some interesting shit on the rocks by the shallows. Think it could be deer which would be great.

Question - anyone know about identifying shit? There must be a website dedicated to it but it's a risky google.

[Brian Freeze]

Animal scat ID might be safer search terms???

We had one a few weeks back that looked very copper sulphatey. The photo doesnt do it justice but might try and dig it out anyway for your perusal.

[BlodwynPig]

https://www.wildlifetrusts.org/wildlife/how-identify/identify-poo

[Brian Freeze]

Bluey green tod - as promised:-



Doesnt look healthy does it?

[Brian Freeze]

And tadpoles on melon:-

[Brian Freeze]

Now with added legs akimbo:-



it look a lot of photos to get this shot.

[Fishfinger]

Beautiful pics.

Here are five seconds of a fledgling robin, from yesterday morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zTXUQDNOUY.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

Exactly how illegal is it to kill a swan? There's one on the river where I go kayaking, that keeps waiting until my back is turned and then rushing at me full pelt. I know the whole breaking your arm thing is a myth, but if he tries it again I'm definitely going to punch him to bits.

[bgmnts]

Just don't go kayaking near it I say.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

That's quitter talk.

[ZoyzaSorris]

Bluey green tod - as promised:-



Doesnt look healthy does it?

No - looks like something that's been eating rat poison or slug pellets, neither of which are the health-giving superfoods scientists once thought.

[Attila]

We have about 3 or 4 fox kits visiting the Party Palace nightly, including a pair who always show up together. Lots of blurry pictures of them playing and play-fighting. Last night we could hear a lot of yelping and barking and carrying on, and when I opened the door, here's Gus the cat chasing the pair of them up and down the garden. One was hiding under a tarp, but the other popped out of the lilies to give me a 'Do you believe this shit?' look.

I brought Gus in the house briefly to give the foxes a chance to skedaddle and regroup (camera footage shows they came back shortly afterwards). In the meantime, Gus had a flea up his arse, quite excited about the whole thing.

We haven't seen the old man fox in weeks, nor, sadly, a hedgehog that seemed to be developing a progressively larger and larger tumour on his hind regions, poor old thing.

[phes]

It's like a bird nursery in the garden today.

This is a blue tit

[paruses]

Then it shouldn't be dressed as a great tit

[phes]

It has a horizontal bar bisecting the eyebrow and cheek, and a cap on the crown. That's a blue tit, and those patterns won't change with age, only the colours

[paruses]

I was just being flippant because I was embarrassed at making such a mistake.

[phes]

Ah sorry I'm a bit turd at getting tone.

re. the headless blackbird, there's as much chance that was a corvid as a cat. They're murderous buggers and well known for removing the head. I didn't think they'd kill a bird as large as an adult blackbird until a magpie was spotted scarpering the scene of a badly injured blackbird outside of my work. It died shortly after and the head was gone within a couple of hours

[paruses]

No worries - I didn't take it like that. Just the need to over explain myself!

Only ever really see the magpies around the garden in the breeding season. The blackbird I found was a juv. The missing head is quite interesting. Full of goodness and easy to carry do you think?

Sparrows were all kicking off around dusk but think that was cat related.

[phes]

That I couldn't answer, but corvids will kill birds just because, regardless of whether they need to eat. Especially when they are young, sick or injured. A few weeks back I saw a Magpie eating a rat - another creature that could be responsible for killing a young blackbird, or taking an opportunity to carry away some of it

[jobotic]

I think the thing to remember is that I was right about the blue tit youth.