Your day's wildlife

[Heltor Chasca]

You were passed by a hedgehog?

Maybe it was doing a Strava segment.

Performance has spiked.

 

[Heltor Chasca]

[QUOTE 4983545, member: 9609"]where were they laying eggs and how were they doing it. We have seen a few on our pond this summer and they appear to be laying ggs in the moss on the stones that surround the water, not sure what the idea is, do the eggs get washed off into the water or do the nymphs hatch out in the moss and make their own way into the water. Anyway this is a picture I took a while back; it was appearing to be pushing the rear of its tail into the moss and it spent maybe 20 minutes going to various moss covered stones doing the same - I guess it was egg laying ?
View attachment 376840 [/QUOTE]

Yes. Eggs will hatch next spring underwater where the larva will live for a year or more predating on other invertebrates. Your wonderfully words of the day: Ovipositor (noun) and oviposit (verb) Spelling test on Monday.

 

[annedonnelly]

[QUOTE 4986409, member: 9609"]I have stated my rounds of clearing out the bird boxes and thought I would share this on, I hah put this up under the eaves in hope of attracting some Swifts, however I ended up with house sparrows (may be 5 broods from the two nests, 40 ish young?). Anyway, it is quite suprising how much material they use, it weighed in at 522g. very clean tidy nests, no dead young, no failed eggs, no poo, seems a shame to chuck it all (but they do reckon it is best as it cuts down on parasites the following year)
View attachment 377206 [/QUOTE]

Stick it in your compost heap. It'll not go to waste.

 

[Flick of the Elbow]

Cycling near Achiltibuie today, noticed a group of around 8 buzzards overhead, very agitated. Stopped for a better look and realised that one of them was significantly bigger and was the target of their agitation - an eagle. Guessing golden based on the size difference. At one point it turned upside down to fend off one of its attackers with its talons. Only my third ever golden eagle, and my first from the bike.

 

[gbb]

It's a bit and miss thing but there must be someone feeding red kite near Stilton, There's a couple isolated farms/ buildings on the opposite side of the A1M and occasionally you'll see many red kite in the sky above...ive mentioned them before in ride reports but this afternoon, there MUST have been 30 to 50 of them wheeling round, quite incredible...

 

[potsy]

It's a bit and miss thing but there must be someone feeding red kite near Stilton, There's a couple isolated farms/ buildings on the opposite side of the A1M and occasionally you'll see many red kite in the sky above...ive mentioned them before in ride reports but this afternoon, there MUST have been 30 to 50 of them wheeling round, quite incredible...

You really need to start carrying a camera gbb.

 

[Flick of the Elbow]

In Speyside for week 2 of our holiday. Within minutes of unpacking a red squirrel was outside the front window and not long after that a crestie was tucking into the peanuts too. (Crested tit, a local specialty, the punk rockers of the tit family).

 

[Heltor Chasca]

It's a bit and miss thing but there must be someone feeding red kite near Stilton, There's a couple isolated farms/ buildings on the opposite side of the A1M and occasionally you'll see many red kite in the sky above...ive mentioned them before in ride reports but this afternoon, there MUST have been 30 to 50 of them wheeling round, quite incredible...

Saw a much smaller spectacle while riding the Ridgeway this summer. The red kites were following a plough in much the same way as you see gulls (see what I did there?) Kites hawking for flying inverts and escaping small mammals I assume.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Saw a much smaller spectacle while riding the Ridgeway this summer. The red kites were following a plough in much the same way as you see gulls (see what I did there?) Kites hawking for flying inverts and escaping small mammals I assume.

I'm guessing ''inverts'' is auto-corrected ''insects''. Kites seem to be pretty much a carrion bird, it seems unlikely to me (no expertise, admittedly) for them to be hunting insects.

 

[Heltor Chasca]

I'm guessing ''inverts'' is auto-corrected ''insects''. Kites seem to be pretty much a carrion bird, it seems unlikely to me (no expertise, admittedly) for them to be hunting insects.

No autocorrect. Inverts short for invertebrates. Hawking is birding terminology for hunting insects on the wing. Dragonflies also hawk for smaller insects. Hence hawkers a group of these beauties. Birders obviously nicked the term. There’s wafare even amongst nature anoraks. Ladybird buffs can never agree on the number of spots given a level playing field.

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

No autocorrect. Inverts short for invertebrates. Hawking is birding terminology for hunting insects on the wing. Dragonflies also hawk for smaller insects. Hence hawkers a group of these beauties. Birders obviously nicked the term.

There was me thinking ''inverts'' were transsexuals!

 

[Flick of the Elbow]

Forgot to mention, en route from Lochinver to Speyside yesterday we made a short diversion to Chanonry Point in the hope of seeing the dolphins. We saw a couple but they were a long way off so not quite the view we’d been looking for. Still, it’s a nice spot and it allowed us to discover the community beach cafe at neighbouring Rosemarkie, a most pleasant lunch stop.

 

[Dave 123]

On the way to work this morning along the Coton cycle path I flushed a fox along in front of me. It had been foraging for scraps after the chrome home dwellers had moved on.

 

[growingvegetables]

Family flock of Long-Tailed Tits in the apple tree in the garden this afternoon - way too early in the year, imho

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Family flock of Long-Tailed Tits in the apple tree in the garden this afternoon - way too early in the year, imho

Why too early? They're not going to migrate, are they? I seem to remember that they're one of the species that suffers great losses here during long hard winters. Let them eat their fill while they are around and enjoy their rather chaotic raids.