What have you seen
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Unfortunately what I have seen are rats in the garden.
I don’t want to set traps or harm them but I don’t want to attract them either and so I have stopped using seed feeders and now only use peanut feeders. We still get all the different tits and nuthatch but unfortunately the finches have stopped visiting.
Sorry for the negative post but do any of you have this problem?
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Had a walk up from Aldeburgh to Thorpeness along the beach today. Oodles of Brent Geese flying south and low over the sea. 2 Wheatears heading the same way but at a more leisurely pace along the beach, a Pied Wagtail chasing after a Meadow Pipit for some strange reason and for the first time in ages we saw a Wheaten Terrier being walked with a normal "Scottie".
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Whilst I was washing up am today a lot of activity in our field woodlarks, song thrushes and 3 cirl buntings also up in the trees 5 hawfinches plus many members of the tit family on the bird feeder and goldfinches and many other species around the field walls so a good start to the day and at home had an unusual sighting yesterday a yellow wagtail which I have not seen around here and on its way south. Also had a lot of red kites flying over quite low.
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For the first time in 2 years I saw a Kingfisher while walking the dog along the local canal. It was startled from its perch in some overhanging brambles and flew onto the handrail of a lock footbridge, where it stayed long enough for me to admire its magnificent plumage.
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I cured my rat problem, but as its raining I will have to wait until tomorrow to show you how.
As I waited at my usual spot, I heard some high pitched calls and a mother and cub Otter appeared.
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Great photo, greylag.
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Disturbed 2 frogs and a baby newt whilst gardening today. One frog took to the pond and gave the most disgusted look as it peered at me and the gardener 😃. We'd left plenty of other hiding places for them.
Also watched a crow giving a red kite a hard hard time yesterday!
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I cured my rat problem, but as its raining I will have to wait until tomorrow to show you how.
very interested to learn, my mum has rats if she feeds seeds to the birds. I really hope we don't get this is due as our birds refuse nuts!
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Well its stopped raining.
I simply added a tray underneath the feeders and all of the dropped seed that the birds decide they don't like is caught by the tray. This seed then sits there and along come's a pigeon/chaffinch and they pick up most of that which is caught by the tray. I occasionally clean the tray.
Also the tray keeps a lot of birds off of the lawn and away from cats.
No rats since.......
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Same spot on river........Kingfisher was here for 3 or 4 seconds....lucky...
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A lovely photo Greylag! Glad your rat problem has been solved too. We always have the odd rat around but have had problems in the past when they got into the roof of an outbuilding (managed to block the entrance routes in the end.)
I saw our first flock of Fieldfares this week, that distinctive sound made me look up. I'm wondering if our single early Fieldfare will return to the apple trees. The flock siting was earlier than previous years.
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Have noticed that fungi are doing well this year in the warm damp conditions. When we were alongside Loch Maree not long ago all the verges had Fly Agaric in them, deadly but attractive! Our front garden this morning has a nice circle of fungus not sure of the name but they form under a big birch tree.
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Good photos Brue sorry not sure what the mushrooms are and in the same theme we stayed at a site near Limoges last night for 1 night on our way to UK and met a french man on site getting the largest mushrooms we have seen a least as big as a dinner plate he did tell us the name and offer us one but we declined he had about 10 in the back of his van and said they were local to the area.
Good photo of the kingfisher greylag the owner of the site we are on at the moment has tried to get a photo of one as it keeps coming to their duck pond but to quick fer her.
Did see about 30 cattle egrets in a field plus 2 great egrets and 3 herons in a different field whilst travelling to the campsite through the Brenne to Obterre.
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Continuing the fungi theme we came across a new one yesterday. A Birds Nest Mushroom. About as big, or small, as a thumbnail. Round with 3 "eggs" inside. This at Lackford Lakes where we were treated to a beautiful Kingfisher for quite a while and a very belligerent looking Green Woodpecker amongst others. Even saw a Cetti's Warbler as it went about its secretive life among the bottom of the sedge.
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I thought you might like to meet a bird that has adopted our garden as home. For obvious reasons, he/she is referred to as Scrag End.
I assume this is a Blue Tit but no idea what has happened to it. It is very very active, great appetite and spends all day flitting around our garden, which makes it very hard to get a decent photo, but it has had it rough. Really hope it survives.
Just managed to get a grab a couple of shots through the double glazing.
Any idea why it is so blue?0 -
Thanks OP.
Scrag has been around for a few weeks and I was hoping that it was just a case of moulting and the feathers would change to normal as they grew, but I have never seen one like this before and it looks quite sore around the neck region.
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We see them like that, definitely a moult but it's getting a bit late and cold. We've had a Great Tit with a huge tick on it's body, don't know whether it has survived but it didn't seem to bother him or her.
Try putting in moulting blue tits on the web and you'll see similar. Hope yours will be ok.
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Thanks for the info Brue. Ours looks a lot healthier than some of those.
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After a month away on the QM2 to NY & Quebec, I was disappointed to not see a single whale, considering we traversed the Nantucket area, Grand Banks and the St Lawrence. A definite contrast to last years trip to Greenland where we saw loads. The only wildlife highlight was a quick glimpse of a chipmunk.
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On our trip towards Cherbourg yesterday in Lower Nomandy I saw 6 Great Egrets in a field and no water about.
Now at Burford site and the most things flying are military A400's but going to Cotswold Wildlife Park tomorrow so a lot of animals but not really wild shall look around the area in the next few days whilst here.
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CY. I was going to make a quip about Chipmunks in the sea, I looked them up and found they could swim...
My land based trips to Canada have produced lots of bird sightings, plus chipmunks, racoons and a solitary groundhog.
Hope you enjoyed your trip, it sounds like a busy itinerary!
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