Your day's wildlife

[rockyroller]

New one on me last night, 11.00, in bed lights out, when dog downstairs starts growling and barking. Not long afterwards, in the darkness, I can hear the flapping of wings, switch bedside light on to see a bat whizzing about the bedroom. Wife dives under the duvet, uttering some rude words, and I get up thinking what to do. It flies into the adjacent bathroom, so I shut the door and open the windows. After a few laps of me and the room it's away into the night. I was desperate for it to settle somewhere is I could get a photo for identification but sadly it was gone. Wing span about 200mm (guess), short body, so no idea what species, sadly.

you are Hero!

 

[Profpointy]

New one on me last night, 11.00, in bed lights out, when dog downstairs starts growling and barking. Not long afterwards, in the darkness, I can hear the flapping of wings, switch bedside light on to see a bat whizzing about the bedroom. Wife dives under the duvet, uttering some rude words, and I get up thinking what to do. It flies into the adjacent bathroom, so I shut the door and open the windows. After a few laps of me and the room it's away into the night. I was desperate for it to settle somewhere is I could get a photo for identification but sadly it was gone. Wing span about 200mm (guess), short body, so no idea what species, sadly.

Whilst we have bats flying around every evening in our garden in the middle of Bristol, thankfully the cat's
not nabbed any as yet, my closest bat encounter was in a cave in Mendip. It was a flat out crawl maybe a foot high and I saw this bat flying straight at me. I had no where to go, and assumed same for the bat, but maybe a foot from my face he went a bit higher and flew through the remaining couple of inches clearance between my back and the ceiling. Quite impressive I thought !

And if anyone's been to Sydney Australia, we saw the huge and impressive flying foxes in palm trees in the noisy high street with bars and discos in the seaside suburb of Mosman. The were clambering round the tree looking down at us with their big eyes and cute fox like (and fox sized) faces. These are impressive beasts with their 1 metre wingspan !

 

[rockyroller]

last night Wifey & I were woken by the sounds of what we think were a cpl of barred owls mating. these are the species whose call sounds like "who cooks for you". well when they are mating (I think) their sounds are much louder, overlap each others & I can't even begin to write what it sounded like. the event lasted a solid minute? maybe, because they woke us up & we heard it again! then some silence & then about a minute later heard them calling out "who cooks for you". well they were cookin' alright! disappointed it didn't trigger our security camera which is supposed to turn of for loud sounds. I should check the settings

ah! I had the setting "record sound events" OFF ... grrr. fixed, now let's hope they get to it again tonight!

 

[Dave 123]

Elephant hawk moth

 

[biggs682]

Just been watching a blackbird with a couple of small white area's strutt around the garden under the watchful eye of a pair of Ravens perched on a neighbour's roof .

 

[rockyroller]

yesterday I observed an enormous wasp? starting to build a nest? under our front window next to our front door. I decided to discourage it w/ extreme prejudice (but no, I didn't kill it). basically knocked they grey thing down & sprayed the area w/ a natural insect repellant. I'm all for wasps having their home, just not on my window which we sometimes open, & next to my door which we always open. we've got some nice trees right nearby that are free for the taking, please

 

[Windle]

Didn't get a photo this morning unfortunately, but we've got a family of goldfinches in the garden. I always have niger seed out in a feeder which this morning was down on the patio again, burst open - gathered round the scattered mess were four, almost fully fledged juveniles and the pair of adults, shortly after joined by what seemed like another pair of full grown birds (last years young)? We originally noticed goldfinches coming into the garden last year (they are occasional visitors) but then spotted them building a nest in a large bush down on the lower patio. They successfully raised a brood last year so have clearly decided to come back again. I've found a photo from last year of presumably the same pair of adults on the previous (repeatedly repaired and now replaced) feeder.

.

 

[Proto]

Not such a happy post from me today. Walking with the hound in the woodland (Forestry England) to the side and behind our house, mixture of beech, birch, oak but 50% Douglas Fir, and sadly, at the bottom of one of the latter, 50 metres from our house, I find a large dead bird, a young buzzard I think, and I’m guessing it’s fallen out of the nest way up high. Quite large but not fully grown, and sparse feathers on the underside of the wings. Very sad. I left it to be recycled by the foxes that are about.

Carried on on our regular short route when I cam across the remains of another bird, and from the size of the feathers, again quite large. From the colours could it be an owl, there’s plenty about?

Further on I find the remains of a couple more, pigeons this time I think. It’s a cruel world.

 

[Dave 123]

Scarlet tiger moth

 

[geocycle]

Watched a family of stoats learn how to cross a road while on today’s ride. Fascinating how a parent came cross then the kits? followed her. Only a phone pic I’m afraid.

 

[biggs682]

Spotted this fungi whilst out on my ride earlier.

 

[sevenfourate]

Lowestoft seafront on todays poodle.

What else would it be ?

 

[Andy in Germany]

After visiting Elder Son I was returning at 1am this morning, so it's technically today when I saw two hares jump across the cycleway, (one apparently misjudged the landing and crashed off through some potato plants) and then a hedgehog made its way through my light beam looking like a small hovercraft...

 

[biggs682]

Another morning with snails on the bird table , duly data tagged

 

[Dave 123]

A small magpie moth