Your day's wildlife

[newfhouse]

Proper nest building is underway.
Yesterday.

Today

 

[biggs682]

Hungry hog visiting our patio area last night

 

[Rezillo]

A number of siskins in our garden birch tree today. Here's one:

They didn't take long to find our feeders - here's a female (and male backside) on the only one that doesn't have a squirrel guard. The feeder is hanging right by our kitchen window, so the glass is affecting the image. This is a first for us - we've never seen them here before.

[edit] Mrs R has decided they are called Cicely and Cecil.

 

[Dirk]

Bluebells out in flower in my garden.

 

[Once a Wheeler]

Awoke at dawn in my inner-urban bed and heard some ardent DIY enthusiast was already jack-hammering in the distance. Why would he imitate a woodpecker? I thought. Incredulously, I drew back the curtain… then grabbed the camera and managed this very iffy pic:

Definitely a greater spotted; and one that has discovered a hollow branch that acts as some kind of natural amplifier. Priceless!

 

[KnittyNorah]

Awoke at dawn in my inner-urban bed and heard some ardent DIY enthusiast was already jack-hammering in the distance. Why would he imitate a woodpecker? I thought. Incredulously, I drew back the curtain… then grabbed the camera and managed this very iffy pic:
View attachment 637599
Definitely a greater spotted; and one that has discovered a hollow branch that acts as some kind of natural amplifier. Priceless!

Interesting. After most of my lifetime only hearing woodpeckers when out on a horse in really rural woodland, in the past few years I've been hearing them all over the place and even known people who have had them on bird feeders. Last week while riding along the canal towpath in my inner (small) city, I heard one - right at the end of the towpath in a busy small industrial area, and less than half a mile further on, just after I'd passed under a heavily-trafficed road bridge, heard another.
I think there must have been a woodpecker revolution of sorts, wherein a few families managed to overcome their shyness and love of privacy to discover the rich pickings to be made in the trees of our towns and cities, and the welcome and protection that was afforded to them. And so they multiplied ...

 

[deptfordmarmoset]

Interesting. After most of my lifetime only hearing woodpeckers when out on a horse in really rural woodland, in the past few years I've been hearing them all over the place and even known people who have had them on bird feeders. Last week while riding along the canal towpath in my inner (small) city, I heard one - right at the end of the towpath in a busy small industrial area, and less than half a mile further on, just after I'd passed under a heavily-trafficed road bridge, heard another.
I think there must have been a woodpecker revolution of sorts, wherein a few families managed to overcome their shyness and love of privacy to discover the rich pickings to be made in the trees of our towns and cities, and the welcome and protection that was afforded to them. And so they multiplied ...

I've only seen greater spotteds in urban parklands (Hyde Park, Greenwich Park, Oxleas Wood) but their presence in urban areas may be more to do with a scarcity of food in an agroindustrial countryside and the (over)use of pesticides.

 

[KnittyNorah]

I've only seen greater spotteds in urban parklands (Hyde Park, Greenwich Park, Oxleas Wood) but their presence in urban areas may be more to do with a scarcity of food in an agroindustrial countryside and the (over)use of pesticides.

I come from northern 'hill country', so very much not agro-industrial, and not the sort of pesticide usage as one would get in commercial orchard and other horticultural areas; there have always been lots of woodpeckers in deciduous valley woodlands. As a child, my parents were keen bird-watchers and our home had a large garden dropping down towards some semi-ancient woodland which was FULL of woodpeckers. They could make a right racket all hammering together and you'd wonder how they could not get a headache while being so good at giving you one ... but we very rarely saw them and they never visited the garden although a very wide variety of other birds did. Finches of many different sorts, treecreepers, nuthatches, wrens, blackbirds, song and misselthrushes, redstarts ... but never any woodpeckers.

I do confess that in the few times I've lived 'down south' I'd always been surprised at the lack of 'wild' wildlife in the so-called rural areas - and gratified and delighted at its abundance in parks and gardens ...

In the relatively-pesticide free life of the uplands - which includes wooded valley portions of the uplands - I wonder if the apparent reduction/change in habitats in some bird life, at least, doesn't have a great deal to do with loss of mature trees in the countryside over the past 40 years or so - the 'Great Storm' of 1987, Dutch Elm disease, Ash dieback, and the necessary clearance and tidying up deemed necessary after/during such events. Older, decorative trees in gardens may well have been the woodpecker's sole remaining source of food so the bolder ones ventured or were driven by hunger into the villages and outer suburbs and over the years they have thrived and spread more and more widely into well-treed urban areas. I imagine this may well have applied to other parts of England, too, with added effect in agro-industrial areas as the birds were 'forced' out of any small bits of woodland remaining, into the trees of urban and suburban parks and gardens, with concomitant lower exposure to the side effects of agrochemicals.

One of the other large factors, at least in upland areas, which is often not acknowledged for various 'sensitive' and even so-called PC reasons, in loss/disturbance of habitat has - I believe - been the increasing number of the public 'using' the countryside, especially when there is a sudden influx, as there often is, during periods which are sensitive to the wildlife in question. People can get really really angry when asked to 'keep to the path', 'keep your dog on a lead', 'don't play in the brook', 'keep out of the water' etc etc - not realising, and/or not caring that ground nesting birds, breeding newts, fish fry, mating hares etc etc can and are being damaged and/or distressed by such actions. The very large groups that can sometimes now be seen in traditionally-popular hiking areas are an additional pressure, as they spread out either side of the accepted, long-used walking/riding tracks - understandably so from their POV - but troublingly so for the generations of 'whatever' flora or fauna which have until very recently thrived within literally just a few metres of a well-trodden path.

I can perfectly well see how and why agro-industry can result in destruction of the environment needed by many species; however agro-industry is not the only factor resulting in changes and challenges to the rural environment.
Anyway this is very off-topic so I will stop now.

 

[biggs682]

On a regular basis we are greeted with a patio covered in chunks of moss like stuff we know it comes from either the gutter or roof tiles but have never been able to say how or who throws it on to the patio.

Feeding the birds just now at the bottom of the garden I turned round to see a blackbird in the gutter happily throwing it out of the gutter.

So we at last have the culprit.

 

[matticus]

On a regular basis we are greeted with a patio covered in chunks of moss like stuff we know it comes from either the gutter or roof tiles but have never been able to say how or who throws it on to the patio.

Feeding the birds just now at the bottom of the garden I turned round to see a blackbird in the gutter happily throwing it out of the gutter.

So we at last have the culprit.

We get this too!
He's doing a great service - are we supposed to tip?

 

[biggs682]

We get this too!
He's doing a great service - are we supposed to tip?

Just wish he would sweep it all up afterwards 😜

 

[annedonnelly]

Just wish he would sweep it all up afterwards 😜

As well as discarded moss I have lots of dried vegetation which has been deemed unsuitable for the starlings' nests. They clearly have little understanding of measurement as the 2 foot lengths are always going to be too long.

 

[potsy]

Not sure what I saw on today's walk.... Some relation of a red kite?

 

[rockyroller]

On a regular basis we are greeted with a patio covered in chunks of moss like stuff we know it comes from either the gutter or roof tiles but have never been able to say how or who throws it on to the patio.
Feeding the birds just now at the bottom of the garden I turned round to see a blackbird in the gutter happily throwing it out of the gutter.
So we at last have the culprit.

birds must think of gutters as a bit of Heaven, eh?

 

[potsy]

Did see this cheeky Robin too, can see how close I was as it was only taken on my phone's camera..