New nature thread- anything interesting this weekend?

[burnhal]

Thought it time to kick a new one off.
Did my BTO tetrad (2km square) survey this morning. Nothing greatly out of the ordinary and its hard to count birds with the trees in full leaf! Plenty of the commoner birds and pleased to see a good number of yellowhammers and whitethroats. A buzzard did put in a brief appearance and was great standing amongst clouds of insects with swifts swirling around you! Reminded me of a dragonfly ID course last year. First dragonfly of the day took off just in front of me. Before I had a chance to ID it there was an audible smack as a swift took it six foot from my nose!
And a first last night. Have seen plenty of tawny owls in my time but last night was the first time I have heard one in my garden in 25 years! Opened the back door at 10pm to be greeted by a distinctive 'kirrick' from the trees at the bottom of the garden! Magic!

[madboutcats]

i do love these threads, i love reading about your local and garden wild life, i love working in my mums garden hearing the birds singing and sometimes finding robin watching me as if hes checking up on my gardening skills, one day he'll tell me ive missed a weed. Theres some very cheeky blackbirds in the garden who risk life and limb by getting very close to my mothers slumbering cat, also one blackie was almost in the house, he was having a right good nosey or should that be beaky at an open door into the house.

[carrust]

I live in Sheffield, & large birds of prey (buzzards, red kites etc) seem to getting more common. I think this is due to the gamekeepers in the Peak District leaving them alone at last! Last year the local bird group set-up cameras on a buzzard & hen harrier nests, & I think they bred successfully. They have also got a full-time warden to monitor the area where goshawks breed.

[chappie]

I feed a hedgehog every evening. If I forget to fill his dish up, he pushes it about and makes a right racket, so I get out of bed and go and fill the dish with mealworms.

I have seen three hedgehogs all feeding from the dish at the same time, grappling to get a place at the dish. It is so funny to watch!

[mangetoute]

had a sparrow hawk drop in my garden two weeks back it was a male being mobbed by two crows and a magpie. nice to see though.

[yogasun]

A badger visits our garden every night now and we regularly have a Sparrowhawk swoop through to see if he can snatch any feeding birds.
Our local estuary had a fleeting visit by an Osprey.
Can't believe the level of birdsong in our garden, just amazing. My son has gone bird 'ringing' this morning at one of our reserves and Wednesday he is going to do a monthly check on a particular area to see if there are any Cirl Buntings before the developers can move in.
Meanwhile Mr. yogasun has seen a Snowy Owl in the Outer Hebrides !
Off to work shortly but will enjoy the garden later and I hope you all do too!
Burnhal, my son is into dragonflies too- most frustrating he says!
He is doing some voluntary monitoring of a particular species somewhere locally in the summer - how he fits in working 52 hours a week is beyond me!
I love owls, great that there was one in your garden.
Keep posting folks!

[alfieblue]

Oh how nice to read all of this!

Haven't got anything unusual to report - robins are busy in the garden tho are now living in new accommodation after the demise of their little chick. Loads of blue tits and green finches feeding.

Robins still trying to rule the roost and boss pup around if he gets too near - but yellowbeak our old tame blackbird holds his own - he is a very cheeky chappie - so friendly and we whistle to each other! If I stand out in the garden and whistle his tune, he will come down and see whats going on!!! What a character!!!

His chicks try to get into the house, one did last year and got tangled up in the blinds!! Managed to untangle it and gently set it free - no damage done to birdie and it happily came back into the garden all summer

Just waiting for the grass snakes to appear now!! We have had problems particularly last year where they will go into the pond and feast on the fish, etc.

Caught one slithering across the grass with goldfish in mouth! I didn't realise they did this but my daughter and I caught him, put him in empty peg bag (!) and took him off to the forest to new accommodation! Meanwhile there were more waiting to feast on pond life!!!!

Saw a couple more going in for their mid morning snack!!Managed to scoop them out aswell (after a few goes!!!) and they joined slippery sid in the forest!

Isn't nature wonderful though.
So much to enjoy.

[LoftyLottie]

Hello you lovely people.

Have very much enjoyed all your postings.

Have had a summer cold and felt rather under the weather this weekend so haven't been out and about much in the great outdoors. Feel better today so am shortly off to inspect what is new in the garden. I woke up at 4.00am this morning and had great pleasure in listening to the dawn chorus and trying to identify the bird calls. Mr Blackbird completely overpowered everybody else with his lovely singing!!

I did think I might actually get up at about 3.00 am one day this week and take myself off to our local nature reserve (where I volunteer). Easy thing to think of, but not actually to do on a cold morning when I am tucked up under the duvet!!

I can't find a link to Krusties link about the Robin. Can anyone help please?

[blimbyrne]

My partner-just outside of aberystwyth-occaisionaly has sparrowhawks and even the odd peregrine take a shot at the birds on the feeders in the back garden.
A couple of years ago while jogging i disturbed a buzzard who flew at me a couple of times, even smacked me round the back of the head!
I used to live near Lampeter and did a butterfly survey there, altho last year was appalling for butterflies, the previous year i recorded clouded yellows for the first time, all over the place, in numbers! Has anyone else seen continental butterflies moving in?

[yogasun]

LoftyLottie
I think this should work - it's under Nature is SO cruel

http://www.theanswerbank.co.uk/Animals-and-Nat ure/Question566671.html

Glad you are better and out to enjoy all nature has to offer.

[burnhal]

Ilove the dawn chorus-especially when you are outside amongst it! We often get up and go into the forest to catch it in the spring and summer. There are occasions when its not quite so welcome though! One of my other things in life is scouting. You get 20 assorted kids in their tents somewhere around midnight- get your head down yourself around 1am (if you are lucky!) and at five am you get woken by the dawn chorus- when you are in a tent it isamazingly powerful and lasts for ever! But what the heck..it is absolutely magnificent!!

[LoftyLottie]

Thanks very much yogasun.

[madboutcats]

reading chappies story about the hedgehogs reminds of a tale a lass i used to work with told me about her resident hedgehog, if she forgot to feed him he'd pick his empty dish up and bang it against her patio window in protest. i had a couple one year fighting what a racket they made. hey burnhal id rather have the dawn chorus than two cats howeling at each other, one kept saying no no no and the other was muttering something about henry, well at least thats what it sounded like. happy wildlife spotting everyone.

[garner]

I'm in South Yorkshire and have the usual Blackbirds feeding youngsters plus sparrows doing the same, we have two old wood pigeons that have been to our garden for about three years it's lovely to see them together.We have a family of Hedgehogs which use our garden as a route to where I do not know but it's great to see them pass of an evening [when the dogs are inside of course].Have noticed in our area more Magpies than I would like, but it's nature and we do worry for the young fledgelings.Green Finches visit and so do Blue Tits.

[burnhal]

Slight commotion outside just now so poked my head out- sparrowhawk passing over being mobbed by a couple of lesser-black backs. And the goldfinches have brought three young to the Niger feeder!

[paddywak]

I walk Max on an old reclaimed pit tip, and depending on the time of day you see a teriffic range of wild life. I prefer the mornings my self as the dawn chorus is great as there seems to a colony of larks on the banking near the pond,as well as all the usual song birds.I often see deer (muntjaks and roe) again mainly quite early on tho once I watched a stag trot down the path without a care in the world in the middle of the day. Today when I went for the afternoon walk, I noticed Mrs Swan showing of her 5 new cygnets for the first time and when I go down later on tonight I'll probably see the owl patrolling and maybe one of the resident foxes setting off. All in all its a good walk and over the year you get to see most of the common wild life and occassionally some quite rare, as when night I visited one of the other tips for a change and disturbed a badger rooting about, I don't know who was more surprised him or me but he didnt seem to bothered even when Max barked at him and he just looked then dissappeared into the undergrowth

[yogasun]

Baby goldfinches how brilliant! They are beautiful birds.
We keep a few teasels in our garden as they love the seeds.
My son ringed lots of young birds this morning but nothing out of the ordinary. There are a couple of Tufted Ducks on the reserve- hoping they are going to breed.
Not much action in our bird boxes but a suggestion of some flitting about a Sparrow nest box, last year a Blue Tit nested there !

[raysparx1]

Hi all, hope you are all well, looks like the wheel is turning really fast now as the sun is in the sky longer, the days are warmer and thoughts of the animals turn to mating, can we ever tire of such beauty it is the one constant in my life apart from my wife and family, I am in no way religious, but, and it is a big but, when I look at the fields and the beauty that surrounds me I do wonder, I put a canvas down on the grass today and just looked straight up, fluffy clouds making shapes that no human could make, gently moving along as the world turnsround, then a buzzard appeared first in small circles they got larger and larger, then the crows spied him, flew flew higher and higher they followed him up, the followed him down, he swereved, they missed, this went on for about 5 minutes it was like watching the battle of britain during the war, they slowly disappeared from view, the buzzard squawking as if calling for back up, hope he is ok, will know tomorrow, the sheep have gone from the field leaving an eerie silence, like being in a church yard, then if you listen, deep from the forest blackbirds are still singing, beautiful songs, like a welsh choir, the leaves on trees are rustling and defecting the suns rays, first light green then dark green, I answer my own question, NO I can never tire of such beauty.

Take care all and carry on the beauty that is natural and free for all to enjoy, Ray xx

[yogasun]

Lovely post Ray, hopefully we'll all keep sharing in this way.
Will post again when there's something to report.

[bensmum]

Lovely thread burnhal
I don't have anything out of the ordinary happening lately. Lots of bird activity but they have young to feed so they are all pretty busy. I have a jackdaw in the garden this year for the first time in the 12 years I have been here and have had a heron perched on the fence. We don't have a pond but there is one down the road!
Haven't seen our sparrowhawks but I imagine they will be around once the birds start fledging. I have seen the buzzards but one of my favourite things is listening to them - they have such an evocative call.

[carrust]

If anyone lives in the Peak District or South Yorks this is worth a look.http://www.sbsg.org/ Click on recent news on the main page.