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Wildlife spotting

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

Previous topic - Next topic

BlodwynPig

Beautiful, you've got a decent camera I see.

Buelligan

Heheh, no!  I don't have a camera, pinched the illustration off of wikipedia.  I'm a criminal, what can I say?

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Buelligan on August 15, 2018, 11:40:58 PM
Heheh, no!  I don't have a camera, pinched the illustration off of wikipedia.  I'm a criminal, what can I say?

sorry?

Buelligan

What?  We don't say sorry (and if we do, we're probably only saying it to get off easy).

BlodwynPig


Buelligan

Criminal we (for we are legion).

bgmnts

Saw a lovely bird today. It was black with white on it.

jobotic

Quote from: bgmnts on August 16, 2018, 07:20:11 AM
Saw a lovely bird today. It was black with white on it.

Pied wagtail.

paruses

Quote from: jobotic on August 16, 2018, 08:43:13 AM
Pied wagtail.

Or leucistic blackbird. Probably what you said though.

Or a magpie.

Spoon of Ploff

Quote from: Buelligan on August 15, 2018, 11:33:36 PM
Walking home tonight, very warm, starlit and clear, noticed the air was full of hundreds of silver moths.  Box tree moths, which is a bit worrying for all the box growing on the garrigue but extremely beautiful all the same.  In some stretches it was like being in a snowstorm.



I am jealous right now. We've passed peak butterfly here in t'home counties.


paruses

Quote from: bgmnts on August 16, 2018, 09:10:29 AM
I googled it, something called a Magpie.

Boom! I should be on Springwatch.

jobotic


bgmnts

I am shit at trolling.

I genuinely am an abysmal ornithologist though, I saw a red-billed chough which I had never actually seen before, down the afon chilling with the ducks and turned out they are common as muck. Was gutted.

The cruel, disillusioning world of wildlife spotting.

littlenell

I love this topic!

My bastard cat bought in a lesser spotted woodpecker, which was identified through tears as it hung limp from the cats jaws, then dropped at my feet. I was inhaling to roar out fire at the cat, when the canny bird stopped it's I'm dead act and made for the window. The cat was frozen in fear of me, which meant I could put it in the hall, shut the door and release the magnificent bird. To be fair to the cat,i would never have got this close to such a beautiful creature if it hadn't been dropped at my feet.

paruses

Quote from: bgmnts on August 16, 2018, 09:51:09 AM
I am shit at trolling.

I genuinely am an abysmal ornithologist though, I saw a red-billed chough which I had never actually seen before, down the afon chilling with the ducks and turned out they are common as muck. Was gutted.

The cruel, disillusioning world of wildlife spotting.

To be fair choughs aren't everywhere and a lot of people wouldn't have noticed. They would have just thought it was a crow.

Just because there are loads where you are means you should still enjoy them. I have been on ringing trips where people have jizzed themselves over a dunnock (not literally, that would be hideous) but were completely indifferent at all the black redstarts we were picking up.  With the dunnocks - where they are ten-a-penny in the UK - it was  nice to stop and appreciate a bird that's so common you've taken them for granted.

Quote from: littlenell on August 16, 2018, 10:09:40 AM
I love this topic!

My bastard cat bought in a lesser spotted woodpecker [...]

Me too. And am very pleased at the outcome of the story.

Hobo With A Shit Pun

Quote from: littlenell on August 16, 2018, 10:09:40 AM
I love this topic!

My bastard cat bought in a lesser spotted woodpecker, which was identified through tears as it hung limp from the cats jaws, then dropped at my feet. I was inhaling to roar out fire at the cat, when the canny bird stopped it's I'm dead act and made for the window. The cat was frozen in fear of me, which meant I could put it in the hall, shut the door and release the magnificent bird. To be fair to the cat,i would never have got this close to such a beautiful creature if it hadn't been dropped at my feet.

I'd a similar experience recently, only it wasn't a woodpecker, but a chiffchaff. Took me ages to wrench open the little bastards jaws, and when I had done I was left standing there with a fat white cat in one hand, and a tiny motionless bird in the other. I shook him (the cat), called him a cunt, and threw him through a nearby cupboard door, which I then closed. With him incarcerated, I was able to put the bird down and let it recover a bit. Ten minutes later, it was flying and fucked off.

When I let the cat out, he acted like we were best mates. Either he knows and accepts the reasons for the screaming and throwing into cupboards, or he just didn't mind.

This came after a series of bird-legs-in-the-hall incidents, and spoke of action required. We've belled him now, and he tinkles where'er he goes. Interestingly, the extended anti avian campaign only really kicked off once we had his majestic baws removed. He must have more time on his hands these days, without the shagging.

Thomas

I was always thrilled to see buzzards back in Derbyshire (they're sometimes nicknamed 'tourist eagles' for their mistakable, eagle-like appearance), but now I live in Ireland they've been replaced by seals and otters (not in the sky, which is still very much the domain of birds). Saw two otters hunting together the other day. Herons are ten a cent here, but I still love to see them. Graceful, lanky things when patrolling the water's edge; perched on rooftops they hunch like old men in raincoats waiting for a bus. They seem to know, with some regret, that they are birds, and want nothing to do with the avian community. They would like to read Philip Larkin but are not allowed in the library.

My partner and I saw a huge seal last year, barrelling along just beneath the clear surface of the river, dappled and patterned, and we watched it pursue and catch a big fish. Ripped it in half with an audible velcro tear from head to tail.   

Cool when you go to London and see them green parrots.



bgmnts

Quote from: paruses on August 16, 2018, 10:49:59 AM
To be fair choughs aren't everywhere and a lot of people wouldn't have noticed. They would have just thought it was a crow.

Just because there are loads where you are means you should still enjoy them. I have been on ringing trips where people have jizzed themselves over a dunnock (not literally, that would be hideous) but were completely indifferent at all the black redstarts we were picking up.  With the dunnocks - where they are ten-a-penny in the UK - it was  nice to stop and appreciate a bird that's so common you've taken them for granted.

Me too. And am very pleased at the outcome of the story.

Indeed, especially considering that almost all wildlife will be eradicated eithin the decade probably.

I saw two fuck-off Heron's at the marshes a few months bavk, they were glorious.

Everything is good except Geese. Nature's cunts.

Dex Sawash



Deer in front yard just now.

BlodwynPig


manticore

When I was on a mental ward in the days of Euro '96, a duck used to come round from the nearby hospital pond asking for food. Fortunately there was a shop nearby that sold the correct food for ducks, so we were able to feed her. Then she disappeared for a few days and then suddenly reappeared in a much more forward but also agitated state of mind, grabbing the food straight out of my hand and then flying off quickly.

We wondered what was happening with her, then soon one day we found out when she appeared with seven tiny ducklings in trail behind her, having walked them across an access road and some parkland to be fed by us. The silly people at the hospital pond mostly feed the birds with bread, so maybe she wanted some better sustenance for her babies.

She seemed quite happy to stay for quite a while after feeding as long as she could fit the chicks under her wings, but once they got too big to do that the visits became much briefer, and eventually they stopped.

Once we had to actively shoo away a disturbed young patient who showed intentions to harm the ducklings, I fear for how he grew up, but otherwise it was just about fine.

paruses

Isn't that the pilot episode of The Sopranos?

(I liked your story)

manticore

The best bird I've ever seen wild was a male Golden Oriole, on the banks of the Colne Estuary. He was absolutely luminescent and this wikipedia picture doesn't quite do him justice. We posted about it on an ornithological site and were told that no it couldn't have been one because it was a few weeks too early for them to be visiting Britain. They suggested it was actually a woodpecker, which was nonsense because he was absolutely distinctive and outstanding and couldn't have been anything else but a Golden Oriole.

I still trust the ornithologists, just not as much as I used to (except maybe Bill Oddie, I like him).


BlodwynPig

I wonder if people spot the female Golden Oriole and shrug and say "just a thrush"


manticore

We thought we saw the female Golden Oriole near the male, but due to her relative lack of distinctiveness we couldn't be sure. Out of foolishness and ignorance I posted the location where we had seen them on this ornithologist's forum, only to be told off because it might attract the bloody birds egg collectors looking for their nest and a rare prize egg.

Wouldn't make that mistake again.

BlodwynPig

Just say that you meant "Oreos", you saw a packet of Oreos in the bushes.

bgmnts

Animals are so fucking cool.

Attila

Hedgehog Party Palace update: now that the little fuckers are getting full-time chow, they've gone back to being very shy. Still hear them out there grunting and choofing away come rave time, though. Saw Small Robert the other night, and if he's a yardstick to go by, they've all turned into fat  little pigs.

That said, when we first discovered them, it was because they were coming onto the back step desperate for food and eating the cat's cheesy-biscuits. The devoured the insect-suet I got for them (on recommendation from t'internet), then went apeshit for the chicken-based kitten food, to the point of eating all of the kitten kibble and just throwing the mixed-in suet pellets to one side.

Stopped at the petshop earlier this week and bought an extortionately priced bag of bespoke hedgehog kibble, and mixed that in with the kitten 'n' suet trail mix. Every night so far this week, the little gourmands have been picking out and throwing all over the pavement the suet and kibble, and inhaling the hedgehog nosh.

I do'nt mind buying it for them; my fist-shake is for the companies that sell it in these tiny wee sacks for about 4x the cost of the same-sized sack of kitten chow. Grr.

Still, it's been fab having the prickly pricks stomping around the crockery and norking at the cats every evening, so on that score I'm not going to complain at all.

Loads of lovely birds and butterflies and stuff in this thread!

bgmnts

Can you feed the hedgehogs snakes please?

Two birds, one stone.