What have you seen
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Lovely walk along Breydon Water from Burgh Castle towards Yarmouth. Lots of waders, geese around but definite highlights were 6 x Snow Bunting and 4 x Water Pipits.
Water Pipit Snow Bunting
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Don't know if this is unusual, but I spotted 19 Collar Doves and 2 Wood Pigeons all together on a house roof this morning, as I walked round our housing estate.
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A badger in our garden last night...OH has just bought a "night" camera unfortunately all the instructions where in French...so that has left us in the dark too! (He's got to send it back as there was also a wrong piece of equipment with it but he had found a translation on the web.) It will be interesting to see who is visiting, the badgers dig up bits of lawn and like windfall fruit. There is a big sett near us and we've always had one or two passing through.
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Hope you get one that works for you, brue. It will be interesting to hear what visitors you're having.
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Yes, it will be interesting, will reveal some of the strange noises and rustlings we hear, OH has managed to print out the English instructions all thanks to internet info from others. So nearly ready to set up.
I put a post on "what are you doing today" as I looked out of our kitchen window this morning wondering when the first fieldfare would arrive. We generally have one first arrival followed by a lot more when the temperature drops. I realised what I thought was a blackbird was in fact a fieldfare. So here are some pics. New arrival, zooming in for a closer look as he eyes up the small apples, getting into the apples, taking a peck and swallowing a big mouthful! The apple tree is a very old variety, the apples are small, just the right size for a quick peck.
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Lovely photos brue.
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We saw a Fieldfare, ten days or so ago, on top of a lamp post, in our local Dunelm Mills car park! He was singing (or rather rasping) away, obviously asking 'Where the heck are you all................' to the rest of his flock (being a good Yorkshire Fieldfare)! They've obviously all arrived now, and are currently in the fields behind our house, and in the hedgerows eating the hawthorn berries.
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Walked up to the moor above Bolton Abbey club site to Simon's Seat. Loads of Grouse, none with a whisky bottle anywhere near, plus we saw a male Hen Harrier quartering the moor.
Goosander and Dipper on the river with 2 pairs of Mandarin Ducks!
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None of the grouse were sufficiently famous then?
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The weather has been variable in the last week, but managed to get a few hours fresh air.
The Wren and Great White Egret were taken around Chew Valley Lake over the weekend, the Blue Tit, Goldfinch and Pheasant taken today at Newport Wetlands.
The Pheasant wandered around the top of the squirrel proof cage for a few minutes before poking it's head in to feed for quite a while.
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Unable to post a photo at the moment (if ever) but today I finally got a close up look at the cocoons we've seen on the pine/fir trees high up in the hills. They are the size of a grapefruit and there are thousands of them on the trees. Always wondered what they were, today I found out. The one we got a close up look at was covered in hairy caterpillars, not the really hairy type but hairy non the less.
Does anyone have any idea what they are, moths or butterflies?
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TG are they Processional pine caterpillars or Thaumetopoea pityocampa which are quite common to Spain and France. The caterpillars turn into moths. They are a pest and can damage trees and also present danger to animals, see link below:
https://www.thinkspain.com/news-spain/2367/the-plague-of-pests-in-our-pine-trees
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You definitely want to stay away from the processional pine caterpillars, particularly with pets. We have them down where I used to have my apartment. Nasty little blighters.
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Our hedgehog, now named Arbuthnott, has been collected by hedgehog haven. Who have agreed it can be returned to us, subject to our garden being inspected 😲, in the spring.
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Thanks OP and Cyber, yes that is what we saw, funnily there was only one of the nest that had the caterpillars all over it crawling about, the other nests we could see (there were lots of them) were just the silky cocoon, no caterpillars on show. I had heard of these caterpillars on another forum but didn't realise they were one and the same.
Bakers2, glad the little fellow got collect, hope you do get him back. We miss our one the snails are taking over
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Pliers
What food are you putting out that attracts siskin and nuthatch. We have quite a choice, but only sparrow and Tits so far. A few goldfinch on one messy day, so bought some niger seed, but they have not returned.
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Hi, Blue,
We don't feed anything special! We have 3 seed feeders, one for niger, the other 2 for sunflower hearts and standard "no mess" seed mix. We also have a hanging fat ball feeder and a ground table where we use our local pet shop's mix, which contains seeds, dried mealworms, small fat pellets and other delights 🤔
We live in a moorland edge village ( Newchurch in Pendle) and have only a small garden.
It's surprising how much our garden birds have varied over the years. 10 years ago, we rarely saw a goldfinch or a coal tit. Now, they are by far the most common visitors to our feeders.
Siskins, we usually get in the winter, but they've arrived in large numbers now, feeding on the niger and seed feeders.
The nuthatches have been trying to use the hanging feeders, but have so far failed and are hoovering up the ground food. They are quite aggressive towards the other garden birds, who just ignore them.
All very entertaining!
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No Siskins at Sculthorpe yesterday which is unusual.
a couple of miles from this CL are a mix flock of Fieldfares and redwings, I would think 100+
Good day today, took a walk from Burnham Norton out into the marshes toward the sea. Saw 50+ flock of curlew, hundreds of geese, stonechats, a single Linnet, a great white egret and a dozen little egrets, oystercatchers etc., etc.
Will go to Titchwell tomorrow.
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Thanks Pliers.
We have almost an identical menu so perhaps we will get a wider variety as the weather gets colder. Siskin have been spotted at Chew Valley Lake, so fingers crossed.
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Once again the birds have ceased gorging at the A B M Caff !!
It seems strange but whenever the temps drop, as they have recently, the little blighters seem to change their feeding habits quite dramatically.
I reckon when it gets a little darker tonight I'll wrap up and do a full reappraisal of their menu !! The only thing that is certain is the two and a half day life span of the suet slabs in the 'cage' type feeder !!
B
P.S.
OP how did your camera repair go please ? { I seem to recall you were getting ERROR messages that you could not clear }
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Hi ABM, picked up the repaired camera today and apart from the wallet going ouch it seems ok.
Had to have a new PCB. It was a camera fault not Water ingress or being dropped.After picking up camera went to Brandon and saw 9 x Parrot Crossbills then off to Lynford Arboretum and saw 4 x Hawfinches. Good day all round.
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Only ever seen a pair of Parrot Croosbills once OP so lucky you. Saw them by the car park in those fir trees next to the car park at Wells front many years ago.
Where have this lot come from? Are they lost or have they set up shop? Anyway I thought you were in Norfolk.
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