What have you seen
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The Starlings are making short work of the fat balls, still, but at least the crumbs are being eaten by a male Blackbird. I just wish that he wouldn't start singing from the tree top at 4:30 in the morning, although I shouldn't really complain as it's great to hear. We have also seen a Blue Tit feeding on the balls, so progress there.
We heard our first Cuckoo when we were out on the fells last week, spotted a Wood Warbler, Wheatear and Stonechat, and today I stood watching a Blackcap singing while I was out on our afternoon walk.
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We've noticed a significant increase in birdsong over the last 4-5 days and think the males are re-establishing their territories in anticipation of a second brood. We hadn't heard a Wren for ages but we can't shut him up and it's been the same on our walks.
As you said Nell, it's great to hear, even at 4.30 a.m.
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Went to check the Caravan today and in the paddock behind the van were 2 x Yellow Wagtails, never seen them there before. Afternoon stroll on Oulton marshes and watched a couple of Sedge Warblers and plenty of Dragonfly’s of which I could only identify the Broad body chasers
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I forgot to mention that we saw a Cinnabar Moth too the other day. Have not seen one of those for a while.
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The buzzards are back - tracing circles in the sky as usual over my head - and now we have far fewer rabbits and grey squirrels in what I loosely call a garden .
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Well, one upside of this virus is that we're seeing lots of young birds on our feeders, which we wouldn't normally see, as we're normally away for about 7 weeks in May/June.
At one point there were 9 tits, blue, great and various young ones with them. Goldfinches are also regular visitors, as are their young, who don't as yet have the red and black face markings.
And now we're getting a young great spotted woodpecker. We've seen both parents for months and months, a few days ago Dad brought a young one with him and today the young one came on his/her own. Can't tell what it is yet, as it's still got the red cap on it's head, but it does like the suet block. We've got feeders, and also a cut-down log, about 1' long, with 4 round holes drilled into it, which we stuff with suet/mealworms. That log is very popular with the woodpeckers, but also the tits and nuthatches.
It's really nice to watch it all, as we normally miss it. So, this staying at home does have it's compensations
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Spotted a coots nest with a chick in it on my constitutional yesterday. Got up bright and early this morning and trundled off with camera and tripod only to find the circus had left town.
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I don't know what is going on at the moment. Birds are absolutely flocking to our feeders. We usually get plenty in number and variety but just lately it has got slightly out of hand. This morning there was a right dust up between a large group of starlings, wood pigeons and a crow, with other smaller birds taking advantage and nipping inbetween. Perhaps others around have stopped feeding and normally of course we are away at this time of the year. However, if we continue to put fat balls out at the rate they are currently being consumed, it will cost £160 a year in those alone.😂
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It's the same here, SteveL, although we only get a couple of starlings and a couple of wood pigeons. We do have battles with the squirrels though!
But we get so many finches (gold, bull and green) and tits (blue, great and coal) all with their fledglings; also a woodpecker family now, and their fledglings come on their own now, several times a day. We also get nuthatches, robins, blackbirds and collar doves. Whereas we used to see a sort of pattern when feeding, where birds used to come at certain times, then none came for a few hours, they are there all the time, there's hardly a minute goes by when there aren't at least 2 birds.
We've had 30kg of sunflower hearts delivered a week ago and have 36 suet cakes on order as we speak! Peanuts don't appear to be quite as popular, and aren't going down as fast. Yes, it adds up cost-wise, around £60 for that little lot, but we're usually away at this time too, and compared to the cost of that, I think it's a relatively small price to pay for the pleasure we get out of it.
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We're awash with fledglings just now, more bluetits, great tits, sparrows etc than we or their parents can keep up with. Just one young Robin on view and no young woodpeckers just yet. It has been worth putting food out even though we put up with a well fed squirrel regularly decimating the feeders. At night the fox eats scraps and the badger tunnels another way through, nothing deters him but we have to refill the gaps every morning to stop our dog making an easy exit! With all the troubles of Covid this year the wildlife has been a great solace. 🦊🐝🐿
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We've no fledgling in our garden apart from Starlings, who make short work of the fat balls. However I've seen lots of different species on our travels over the last week, Sedge and Willow Warblers, Chiff Chaff, Blackcap, Eider Ducks, Sand and House Martin's, Swifts, a Little Tern, Lapwings and what looked like a piebald Starling, as well as the odd seal.
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An otter in our pond (well, it was my son who saw and filmed it).
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OH made a hedgehog food station a couple of weeks ago. It's quite posh, made from left over wall cladding from when we had our bathroom done, so perfectly water-proof!
The food disappears every night, but we hadn't actually seen a hedgehog since putting this out, although we did see them regularly before that. But last night, when he went to put the food inside, there was a big hedgehog inside it, waiting for its food! When he went back 10 minutes later, he could hear lots of munching sounds from inside.
Agree with brue, the pleasure we've had from watching the birds has compensated to an extent for the lockdown. Normally we wouldn't have seen as much of it.
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We went walking in Grizedale Forest today and spotted this butterfly, which I think is a Small Pearl-bordered Fritillary.
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We too are loving the wildlife in our garden, we managed to last year too!
Loads of fledglings, sparrows, tits blue, coal, great and long tailed as well as Robin's, starlings, blackbirds, dunnets, wren, gold finches, thrush magpie and crow! Whatever I put out, with the exception of peanuts disappear. But I love it. Magpie helps itself to my food but still steals from nests. Not seen the sparrowhawk this year so far.
We have hedgehogs, and a hedgehog house, a few weeks ago we definitely had 5 different ones, but since the puppy arrived and found she could get into the house and eat their food!!........ I've moved the hedgehog house to ensure the puppy can't get to it but I can add dry food - no mean task! But they've not eaten or used the house but definitely wander around the garden leaving their calling cards. Maybe when they'll return, they always came when granddog is staying, just got to readjust. They are still in residence under our shed.
Goldie lovely otter footage.
One thing that lockdown has proved to me is that nature will carry on regardless. Let's hope that this will always be the case...........
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We're usually away at this time of the year and have kept saying we don't get frogs in our pond. Of course now we're at home they are croaking away and there are still some tadpoles, mixed in with the fish who seem to have left some. I'm guessing we just don't notice half the things going on when we're out and about. The badger moves heaven and earth to get into the garden every night, we had to dog proof the garden for our tiny new dog and the badger still gets in so every morning OH has to check for dog escape routes. The fox is more nimble and can climb over things. No hedgehogs spotted and I can usually hear them at night. Will put the tracker camera out again to see what's happening.
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This eyed hawk moth has spend the day hiding on our green fence. I snapped the photo without zooming in and then sugar daddy arrived for puppy date so didn't check it again!
Looked in our butterfly moth identify books reckoned it wasn't there! My friendctried too, so maybe were both dense? Did an online search and found it, checked it with our 2 books yes it was there in both but illustrated far more colourfully.
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B2, with respect to Bird Peanuts -- I put the nuts, not the birds, through a small kitchen grinder / shredder, so that they come out about 1/6 th or less sized. Never had a failure with those in a steel mesh feeder over a layer of full sized nuts to stop too many dropping on the floor when it's feeding time !!
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Nice snap, brue, and it enlarges well too. Could do with that in my collection.
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