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Wildlife spotting

Started by Twit 2, August 06, 2018, 12:59:58 PM

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Jockice

Quote from: BlodwynPig on July 20, 2021, 08:45:22 AM
Bat watching cant be beaten. I have zero night vision now, so those days are over unless i purchase NV goggles. Do enjoy, but dont touch

It sounds brilliant. Think I should take my binoculars? Someone gave them to me years ago but I've never used them.

New page brought in to bat

phes

Depends how far away they are. Bats are fast and agile so you'd struggle to find a use for binocular unless there were many and far away. Can't hurt to take them but I suspect you'll get more pleasure watching without

Jockice

Quote from: phes on July 20, 2021, 10:26:40 AM
Depends how far away they are. Bats are fast and agile so you'd struggle to find a use for binocular unless there were many and far away. Can't hurt to take them but I suspect you'll get more pleasure watching without

I'll take them down just in case. Cheers. It's not till next month and I'm already excited.

Endicott

Just saw two sparrows having a right barney. Not sure what happened, one probably did too many 'your mum' gags. The nearest one's got its foot on the other one's head.


paruses

I think that's two dunnocks. It looks like they are doing Brazilian ju jitsu. Are you sure they aren't just training?

Spoon of Ploff


Endicott

Quote from: paruses on July 20, 2021, 03:13:05 PM
I think that's two dunnocks. It looks like they are doing Brazilian ju jitsu. Are you sure they aren't just training?

Pretty sure I heard one of them twittering 'You cahhnnt!' but you can never be sure.

Thanks for the dunnocks hint, I reckon you could be right about that.

I first spotted them hopping about with their feathers all puffed up, chasing each other about the fence. Next minute, BUNDLE! I was surprised they were still at it after I'd gotten my camera.

phes

Agreed they are dunnocks. Probably two males

Brian Freeze

Rescued a dragonfly out of the workshop at 10pm tonight. Well chuffed.

It appeared about half seven but went off into the gaps in the roofing panels in search of escape so we thought it was a gonner but it came back down once it went dark. Think it was a Brown Hawker but didn't hang about looking at it once it was in the bucket. Tipped it onto a high spot and away it went.

We had one a couple of years ago that didn't make it. Ended up taking it home and putting it on a hot water bottle and offering it dead flies.


Buelligan

Haven't been keeping up with this thread recently, don't know why.  Weird really.  Anyway, just thought I'd report a bat.  Came into the restaurant last night.  Saw it full-on, right in the face, as it flew directly over my head.  Beautiful teeth. 

Brian Freeze

Finally got five minutes on a computer, so . . . .

this is the dragonfly that didnt survive and now lives on a treasure shelf



this is the one that did survive (its upside down - for some reason it kept turning itself wrong way up, which really helped with getting it into the bucket)


phes

Busy weekend for wildlife. Found a queen bee that had been trapped in my apartment for 24 hours. Appeared close to death but after 90 minutes of gently propping it upright while it drunk sugar water it eventually took off. Have you ever seen a bee drink?  They have a tongue that is 7-8mm long. And this afternoon while having a pint in the kirkstall bridge on the river Aire I saw a Kingfisher fly by, my first in a couple of years.

BlodwynPig

Not to be left out, I saved a couple of flying ants yesterday.

Blue Jam

Just went for a bit of a hike round Arthur's Seat. Heard lots of pops and crackles, which I realised were coming from the gorse bushes, and probably the sound of the seed pods drying out in the sun and popping en masse. Cool.

Also saw lots of randy butterflies.

Attila

The camera's been playing up for the past week or so, but it seems to be in working order again.







I like to lie out on the back lawn to watch the ISS pass overhead, and one evening last week was joined by a hedgehog: s/he was bumbling around the garden and just bimbled up to me while I was lying there. Scooted off when I asked, 'Are you sure you want to get this close?'

Meanwhile, the young foxes have decided that Mr Attila's collection of outdoor scrub brushes are the best toys ever, and every morning we find them at various places in the garden or on the driveway. He thinks they stole one of his best bike-cleaning brushes, but that's what you get for leaving them out.

Don't know what this tiny beauty was but it was very lovely. I tried to use Butterfly Conservation identifier but I'm none the wiser.


Mr Eggs

^It is on the Butterfly Conservation site. But they aint showgirls when knackered



Micro-moths never get the love.

Mint Moth Pyrausta aurata


Sorry, only just seen this reply. Thanks for the info. (Odd name though - didn't taste minty when I licked it).

Shit Good Nose

99+% sure I saw a beaver in the wild in Somerset yesterday.  Unfortunately I didn't have my phone or any camera with me.  One of the secret beaver projects that are dotted around the country is in north Somerset, and there are rumours that a few have been released in a couple of key areas, so there's a fairly good chance it was the real thing (although I couldn't see any evidence of dam building or anything).

kalowski

Spent a week up un the Lake District. Delightful sights: a pair of buzzards, a juvenile blue tit every day, goldfinches, lesser spotted woodpecker, grey wagtail, a dipper, a kestrel, mistle thrush, reed bunting, grey heron...

And I wasn't really looking, just doing a lot of walking.

ZoyzaSorris

Started hoverfly recording again in the garden over the last week, and numbers seem to have been rising after a noticeably slow start (probably due to the cold spring).

Was very happy to spot two Volucella species at once a couple of days ago - Volucella zonaria and Volucella pellucens, both very impressive beasts. V. zonaria is the UK's largest hoverfly and amongst our largest flies, it is the size of a hornet and looks uncannily like one at a glance. Both have fascinating life histories - the adult females enter wasp nests to lay their eggs deep within the structure, and somehow the wasps pay them no attention at all whereas they normally ferociously attack and kill any insect intruders.

How they manage this is unknown but most likely guess is some kind of pheromone release that blocks the wasp's instinctive aggressive response. The larvae then live and grow in the nest, again ignored by the wasps, feeding off of waste and detritus - and sometimes eat wasp larvae too. This last thorny issue aside, it seems likely that the 'cleaning' function of the muck-eating hoverfly larvae has some benefits for the wasps, by reducing risk of bacterial and fungal disease.

So they are an interesting example of the grey area between commensalism (one organism benefits from living with another but causes no harm or benefit in return), symbiosis (both organisms in the relationship benefit) and outright parasitism (one organism benefits, the other is harmed). I'd be interested to know if the wasps have evolved to tolerate the Volucella incursions, or at least have not had the evolutionary impetus to override Volucella's defensive chemical mimicry, because the usefulness of their cleaning function outweighs the loss of the odd larva here and there.

Hoverflies are generally a very interesting group. Aside from their astounding evolutionary mastery of flight engineering, possibly the best nature has every produced, and the widespread use of often very advanced mimicry of various wasp and bee species, they have such a range of lifestyles as larvae - I once thought they were all aphid-eaters (and many are), but just as many are aquatic, often in water rich in rotting matter (various kinds of 'rat-tailed maggot', or live in rotting vegetation or wood on land, and quite a few lead a symbiotic/parasitic lifestyle in ant, bee or wasp nests.

Also they count amongst the prodigiously migratory of insects, with hundreds of millions of hoverflies of various species migrating to and from the UK annually. When the time is right, they gather in swarms driven by some unknown signal, and collectively rise to a height where the winds will carry them in the right direction, often for hundreds of miles a day, before descending at a suitable destination. This way continental populations can escape the hot, dry summers further south and exploit the short but bountiful growing season of more northern climes to breed. The next generation then heads back south again later in the year.

Volucella zonaria (not my pic):

Fishfinger

#2391
Had two concurrent nightly visits from a hedgehog, which was a real surprise. It may be a coincidence but they appeared on the camera the day after I saw one dead in the road. Put some kibble and water out last night but only attracted a fledgling robin and a magpie, early this morning.


Fishfinger

Edit bug A few seconds of foraging hedgehog: https://youtu.be/48ZsZ3oSzAE

DoesNotFollow

A couple sightings from a stroll along Boscombe clifftop the other week. Will post a few more but don't wanna hog up space on the thread.

Common lizard:


Wall lizard:


Wasp spider:

ZoyzaSorris

Gorgeous. Wish I lived somewhere with lizards. Keep wanting to at least try and start up a colony of slow worms in this locale. Never seen a common lizard (or a wall lizard in the UK)!

Fishfinger



Brian Freeze

Quote from: DoesNotFollow on August 08, 2021, 07:18:03 PM
A couple sightings from a stroll along Boscombe clifftop the other week. Will post a few more but don't wanna hog up space on the thread.

Don't worry, there's loads of room in here. Get more of them up, they're quality.

Fishfinger

Two hedgehogs at night now. Aargh. Please don't get run over.

Attila

Party palace news:

The girl hedgehog now has two boyfriends, including this blind one



The current crop of hedgehogs take no shit off the 5 or 6 fox youths who come by nightly.



Foxy calls his pals



Foxy closeup