Wildlife spotting

[purlieu]

Probably more likely redwings, but could easily have been both - we only seem to get get mixed flocks around here.

[Crenners]

Just seen a wild wolf in the countryside

[Endicott]

I was over the RSPB reserve again and saw a couple of birds I've never seen before, so I might have these wrong.



I think this is either a bar-tailed or a black-tailed godwit.




Reckon this is a snipe.




Definitely a lapwing.

[Gurke and Hare]

There seem to be loads of snipe around this year - if the weather's okay on Sunday I'm going to go to the London Wetland Centre to have a look for them there.

[purlieu]

Black-tailed godwit there, the bar-tailing would be obvious on that shot. Nice picture, haven't seen one in years.

No snipes at all for me this winter, we seem to have lost a couple of local spots. Only three years ago I remember walking through a field and dozens went flying out (with a few jack snipe among them), but this year absolutely zilch.

[lauraxsynthesis]

A highlight of working from home was seeing a sparrowhawk eat a pigeon while I was sat at my desk last week
https://streamable.com/53r8is

[Buelligan]

Really warm and sunny out, saw my first Mediterranean Tree Frog of the year this pm.  Just sat there, sunning itself on some scree, about halfway up the mountain.  If someone drew one of these, you'd think (if you'd never seen one) that the person drawing it had never seen a real frog, they're so incredibly green and shiny.  If pink bubblegum was green, they'd make these frogs from it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mediterranean_tree_frog

[lauraxsynthesis]

One of those toad patrols is forming in my neighbourhood around a park where dozens of toads cross the road every March. We've been told not to pick them up with antibac on our hands

[The Frank Butcher]

I went to the aquarium in Salthill, Galway today. It falls outside of your topic a bit but I wanted to put a few remarks about it somewhere that might chime.

I've been dealing with PTSD from a heavy-handed bit of policing and keep arguing with the officer who conducted my recorded interview, in my head. It can quite envelop me at times. I was aware around three-quarters of the way into my visit of a feeling of recalibration. Being nearer calm, but sometimes I questioned the 'calm' - were these creatures being projected upon by myself or circumstantially reflecting me? There was a stingray who seemed to conceptualise me outside of his tank, and the idea of glass. Just the day before I'd been messaging someone about aquariums not being 'as bad as zoos' and then wondered.

Seahorses very often seem depressed in aquariums. In one of the two seahorse tanks there was just one of these fellas, immobile. I think this is how Sting came up with 'King of Pain'. I read the board on seahorses and my eyes filled up - this was almost the only time also during my visit when I wasn't alone, a family had appeared. The caption described the 'obvious' stuff about their ritual of linking tails, a properly romantic caption that described seahorses in their expanse of water of choice, at odds with the funk of the lads on display there. Earlier a barista had given me a cappuccino with what looked like a H on the top made of chocolate. I half joked to her, "I just need to double-check that isn't a H for help there?" How we almost laughed. Should I go back at about 2 a.m. and bust these depressed things out? Despite their lack of access to chocolate smoke signalling items?

Some of the fish were so plump and healthy that I imagined how lovely it'd be to have a few inches of one on the go in a pan. I haven't touched cooking utensils in nearly two months. I don't want to hear that door-knocker again. A big bit of cod used to taste lovely, didn't it, but now they don't taste of anything.

A woman and her daughters appeared, the girls too excitable to settle long enough in front of any one display. I felt my eyes fill up again. The last time I went to a zoo I think I looked less at the animals than at kids enjoying them.

The Regal Tang was a bit small. I'm sure I remember a bigger one at the last aquarium. It wouldn't do, though, for me to start complaining about size. A Regal Tang needs to be about 1 1/2 the size of this one at Salthill to do the essence of the Regal Tang justice, in my view. You can appreciate how underwhelming an average size penis can be, when you see an underwhelming Regal Tang. On reflection this has really put me in my place. It doesn't do to go to aquariums.

The officer kept butting in at times, and I butted back. Fabricated 'quotes' in 2021. I'm trying to enjoy this Bull Huss, officer, shut the fuck up.

I went for a leak before I left and taking my mask off saw that I looked calm, de-agitated. It may just have been the light.

[paruses]

Siskin galore in the garden this morning.

[dissolute ocelot]

Saw loads of wigeons at the weekend. I spent ages staring out to the Firth of Forth at about 4 of them bobbing distantly, and then walked half a mile to a little river and there were dozens of the bastards up on the grass eating away bold as you like. Also seen a few goldeneyes lately. And an oystercatcher with one leg hopping along and balancing itself with its beak.

[Buelligan]

Just seen a big old coypu down by the river.

[Twit 2]

I'm sorry; I couldn't find a toilet.

[Buelligan]

Hehehehehehhhheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehehehehehehehheheheh.

[purlieu]

Saw loads of wigeons at the weekend. I spent ages staring out to the Firth of Forth at about 4 of them bobbing distantly, and then walked half a mile to a little river and there were dozens of the bastards up on the grass eating away bold as you like.

Found a wigeon head in the town centre last week. We have peregrines nesting on the church so it was almost certainly one of those that'd caught it (the severed spine matches the killing style) and accidentally dropped it. Right outside the busiest cafe bar in town.

[Buelligan]

Just been up on the tops hunting the old wild asparagus.  Found plenty.  Was so busy eyes cast down in my searching, forgot to look up.  Suddenly browsing towards a big edge, a pair of eagles, plain as you like, just floating there, out, above the drop.  Felt like I could join them.  Smashing, Clive.

[Attila]

The hedgehogs seem to be back at the Party Palace in a big way. The first one showed up grumpy and bedraggled in late February -- a tough, battle scarred, one-eyed bruiser.

But the last couple of nights there's been a lot of indication of activity (water bowl tipped over, hedgehog shit everywhere, &c).

We've set the camera back up, as it has been in a few days because of scaffolding out against the back of the house.

We've had a couple of foxes (and loads of cats from the neighbourhood) all winter, but it's nice to see the hedgehogs are starting to wake up. They'll be pretty hungry, and we should be seeing courtship silliness over the next few weeks or so before the tinies begin to arrive.

[Toxteth OGrady]

On new year's eve I saw my first nuthatch in a Welsh wood with a couple of mates who didn't give a shit. This avy one's been on my seed feeder...deep joy! No chance of pics wildlife fans, soz

[AzureSky]

Went to Rutland on Sunday and saw England's only known Osprey, albeit at a distance and through a scope, but it was pretty amazing. She was joined by the male yesterday and they have started mating today. Live steam is here:

https://www.lrwt.org.uk/rutlandospreys

[phes]

3 Buzzards together, Curlews, a Nuthatch, Treecreepers (three on one small trunk!), a Goldcrest and many Tits and Robins the day before yesterday on the Derwent. Nuthatch in the very same place as last year so presumably the same fella!

[Spoon of Ploff]

Robin Watch Cont.

About a month ago a second robin started to turn up to the feast. This one's a singer, the other one is mostly quiet (mostly).

So far they've been getting on, so I'm hoping they'll become a pair and not end up pecking each other's beaks off.



Recently the quiet one has been picking up dry leaves and giving them a shake.. maybe checking out suitable nesting materials?

Also, I see some of these critters hanging out at the base of the same fence posts:

[purlieu]

Red kite over the garden at the weekend, being seen off by a couple of herring gulls. They never get a break, those raptors.

It's always nice when the first butterflies are out. I've had brimstones, small whites, small tortoiseshells and a peacock so far. It's like a hint of what's to come, as well as a reminder that yes, the sun is out and the temperature is up! Lovely times are here.

We have a bird feeder on the window and were woken up a couple of days ago by the sound of a woodpigeon singing while stood on the ledge. Honestly a great way to have one's sleep disturbed.

[Twit 2]

Over the reed bed the marsh harriers
cavort for spring but far up and cruising
above them, a different bird, a glist,
a chequin in the fiery manganese
air. Their male, in his resentment, pitches
to reach it where, whiter and bigger than
he is, it pikes on the wind, levels on
five-fingered wings, black tips, carpal-patches,
which it holds fathomed for a moment then
slews and slents away into the blue glare.
No part of the sky-dance, of talons and
tumbling. It caught the drift, accepted it
and lifted on it into clarity,
to be the final shining fix out there.

As well as the obvious celandine
open on the bank in Edward's Lane, this
fribble of white flower is bittercress.
The single line of reflexed hairs along
the stem is typical for chickweed. I
meet my neighbour at the corner and we
speak about tomorrow's storm. Kirsten hoves
over her hedge to make a point. Background
details treaty deep into agreement,
each proposing this good morning and some
sharper recognition for itself. More
scrutiny of the south-facing bank. And
sudden Kirsten. And red dead nettle hides
four teeth of orange pollen in its hood.

Looking for something. Finding something else.
Any scribble is too easily made
into a face. First there is flamboyant
use of space. Then the suspicion of an
awkwardness. I had thought there were two pairs
of harriers. One of the four is not.
The graphics roll into a scuffle, bind
a confusion, wrestle themselves for a
discovery. The sky is opening
to the touch of an anomaly: the
other bird, full splay, stamped with black on both
its wrists. No fadge. No easy face. Kirsten,
intense, the very likeness of herself
against the sky. Emerging from the hedge.

A tap on the hat-brim. Snow is melting
from the branches of the poplars and the
impact of a drop suggests that I should
trap it, crisp, and take it home to brood on.
Keep it fresh for reference. More than the
blether of the usual to and fro.
I remember the white raptor as one
snapshot in the Album of Departures.
The stamens slip their cape and step to the
open door to warm themselves. As folklore.
Adam and Eve. I stare at them. They stare
at me. Kirsten is staring over the
hedge, above the hedge, across the hedge, braced
on her mark and expecting to vanish.

Rain wets the line of hairs. They conduct it
to the lower leaf-stalks. At the axils
these are cups with lips which catch the moisture
to absorb it or to spill it over
so they pass it on. The explanation
is itself a pleasure. But the stuff of
the hairs has gone, until the verb 'distil'
begins to prickle, liquid soaks back through
the letters, and again: that curious
strip of fur, the fourth bird sheering to the
north for the sub-arctic, the couple who
uncurl in the mouth of the flower, and
bittercress as bittercress while Kirsten
is sharing silence with the quickset twigs.

[dissolute ocelot]

It's always nice when the first butterflies are out. I've had brimstones, small whites, small tortoiseshells and a peacock so far. It's like a hint of what's to come, as well as a reminder that yes, the sun is out and the temperature is up! Lovely times are here.

I saw a peacock butterfly in Edinburgh today, which seems very early for up here. I guess the warm weather is bringing them out. Hope it likes daffodils - aside from the trees, there are some gorse flowers and a few other early-flowering things like lesser celandines, but not a lot of blooms yet.

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Spotted this duo of oystercatchers earlier, presumably wondering why the seasons seem to have gone into reverse. Seem to see more and more of these in towns in recent years, pecking at the ground on grass verges by the roadside, but these ones were toughing it out in the wilds.

[Voltan (Man of Steel)]

As my bird feeders now appear to be actively scaring away the birds, and as fuck all else seems to want to visit my garden I thought I'd post another pic of the moon and pass it off as a "nature" photo.

On the advice of the bloke who fixed my roof last week, I've bought a tub of sunflower hearts, which Jeff said had attracted a wide variety of birds to his feeders. So far only magpies, pigeons and squirrels but it's only been two days so I haven't given up yet. I live life right on the very edge.

[DoesNotFollow]

Question about barn owls.

My girlfriend's been watching live cams of barn owls in Florida recently. We observed the male climb on top of and appear to mate with the female who was already sat incubating eggs. Is this usual behaviour and is it likely to be fruitful of anything?

Cheers.

[Endicott]

Don't try it at home.

[Buelligan]

House martins came home today.

[Twonty Gostelow]

House martins came home today.

I always rejoice in the sound of the first chiffchaff, but the return of swallows, swifts and house martins is probably my favourite part of spring. They're not here yet, obviously further north than you, and I'm noticing fewer and fewer every year, but I'm certainly looking out for them.