Your day's wildlife

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Where are you? We haven't got any yet.
They truly are a sign of spring.
Had a song thrush going for it outside the bedroom window this morning

Worcestershire. Heard a few now. Great Tits are he hawing everywhere too

 

[growingvegetables]

Sparrow hawk taking out a pigeon. Just wow!

 

[Mireystock]

Those two ubiquitous fallow deer again !

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

whilst we were out on my evening physio walk last night, (without lights on because the moon was bright enough and I now have reflective strips on my crutches...) a tawny owl flew a few feet over our heads and landed in an old oat beech tree about 10m in from of us. It stayed there until we walked underneath it and then repeated flying over our heads really low and flew off down the road.

 

[hopless500]

Worcestershire. Heard a few now. Great Tits are he hawing everywhere too

Yeah, the great tits are seriously going for it all over the place here. Noisy little buggers!

 

[hopless500]

Two muntjac and a rabbit in the garden. Bye bye young green shoots

 

[hopless500]

[QUOTE 3608110, member: 9609"]Not the best picture in the world, (poor light and a little distant) but a Tree Sparrow (not to be confused with the house Sparrow), quite rare round these parts. RSBP Red Listed with an estimated 93% loss since the 1970s.

[/QUOTE]
We have a lot of those in our garden. Not so many house sparrows.
A few years back when we still had lots of house martins (they've declined massively) some tree sparrows moved into one of the old house martin nests. Then the house martins returned. There was a huge scrap and the tree sparrows were physically dragged out of the nest - the martins plummeted towards the ground and only let go of them at the last moment. What was really sad was that one of the nests got knocked off the wall and fell - and it was full of baby tree sparrows. A couple survived and on advice we got them into another nest on the offchance the parents would come back and feed them. But they didn't

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Hadn't realized House Martins were such bullies.

 

[Mrs M]

We have a lot of those in our garden. Not so many house sparrows.
A few years back when we still had lots of house martins (they've declined massively) some tree sparrows moved into one of the old house martin nests. Then the house martins returned. There was a huge scrap and the tree sparrows were physically dragged out of the nest - the martins plummeted towards the ground and only let go of them at the last moment. What was really sad was that one of the nests got knocked off the wall and fell - and it was full of baby tree sparrows. A couple survived and on advice we got them into another nest on the offchance the parents would come back and feed them. But they didn't

I love sparrows, this one is really pretty.

 

[Tail End Charlie]

Hadn't realized House Martins were such bullies.

Simon Barnes in his book "how to be a bad bird watcher" describes house martins flying around "busily farting" to each other. The first time I heard them after that I knew exactly what he meant.
Today I was in the Dark Peak area and heard several curlews and a skylark and I passed within five yards of a buzzard which was sitting in a tree. I also saw a couple of lapwings.

 

[Crackle]

I saw a Little Owl a few weeks ago. It sailed silently into the tree above me and I just saw a fleeting silhouette against the stars out the corner of my eye. I then blinded it with a torch to confirm it was an owl.

 

[hopless500]

Hadn't realized House Martins were such bullies.

Not common - as in it was a recorded first. We have a 'birding' friend who is an ex county recorder for Notts. He came and checked it out (a bit after the event) and took all the details down and sent them in.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I've just rescued a smooth newt from the middle of the road on a speed bump in the dark. (Well instructed my husband to move it really given I can't bend down to pick it up).
We moved it to the grass verge it was heading towards to stop it being run over. Then 2 tawny owls called to each other, so it got moved again, this time 3 foot further in and under some grass and leaves, under the 'hedgerow' so that any owls would not decide it was a quick snack... (they do take them). I didn't really expect to find it out after dark tbh...

 

[twentysix by twentyfive]

Two muntjac and a rabbit in the garden. Bye bye young green shoots

Job for the shot gun, the pastry maker and the oven

 

[Donger]

Six red kite circling above our house (on the edge of Gloucester) yesterday........ and a weasel shot across the road in front of me on my last bike ride down the country lanes nearby. Man, they are fast little buggers! Unlike the one in the papers lately, it wasn't showboating by riding a woodpecker or anything.