What have you seen

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  • nelliethehooker
    nelliethehooker Club Member Posts: 13,644 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3422

    Beautiful photo, B2. Can't say I've ever seen one either.

  • Bluemalaga
    Bluemalaga Forum Participant Posts: 936
    edited July 2021 #3423

    Passing a derelict barn this morning, I spotted a pair of Little Owl on what was left of an end wall. Inside were 2 juveniles hunting around on the floor. I stopped for a while to enjoy my first sighting of this charming little bird.

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3424

    A beautiful photo Bluemalaga, thanks. smile

  • nelliethehooker
    nelliethehooker Club Member Posts: 13,644 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3425

    +1👍

  • Bluemalaga
    Bluemalaga Forum Participant Posts: 936
    edited July 2021 #3426

    Thanks Brue and NTH

    It was a pleasure to share time with the Owls and the photo with you.

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3427

    Frustratingly heard almost constantly but not seen! Green woodpeckers at Cherry Hinton Site. I'm wondering around with bins and camera but to no avail!

  • mickysf
    mickysf Forum Participant Posts: 6,474 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3428

    Interested, like those parakeets, Little Owls are an introduced species in ‘our’ country!

  • papgeno
    papgeno Forum Participant Posts: 2,158
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    edited July 2021 #3429

    We had a very poorly looking Magpie on our patio the other day. I went to see if it had gone a couple of days later and found it under the barbie tangled in the cord that ties the bottom of the cover. The poor thing must have been twisting round umpteen times trying to get free, it was really badly tangled in the cord and the gas pipe. It’s leg and tail feathers were tightly caught.

    It took me a good half hour but I managed to free it in the end without having to cut anything. I don’t know why but I found myself talking to it all the while. It didn’t seem to help, it still tried to peck me!

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3430

    Spotted a "spotted" longhorn beetle....it seems to be a good year for insects, more grasses left to grow locally.

    Glad you managed to free the magpie Papgeno.

  • JohnM20
    JohnM20 Forum Participant Posts: 1,416
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    edited July 2021 #3431

    We sat in Wetherby services a few days ago watching a Red Kite wheeling round and round above us, quite low at times and for about twenty minutes. Are the services a good area for easy pickings? I knew that they were spreading north but hadn't realised they were so far north yet.

  • Wherenext
    Wherenext Club Member Posts: 10,607 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3432

    Harewood House had a reintroduction programme of Kites and is very close to Wetherby so it may well still be a local bird. We have not long returned from a cottage about 10 minutes drive from Harewood and the area had a couple of resident Kites.

  • nelliethehooker
    nelliethehooker Club Member Posts: 13,644 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3433

    Question to the birding experts..... Walking round one of our local reservoirs today, and among the Canada and Greylag Geese was another goose, slightly smaller than a Greylag and with similar colourings  except it was unmarked down both sides of it's neck and it had bright yellow legs and feet compared to the pink of the Greylags. I might pop back tomorrow and try and get a photo of it if it is still about. 

    Also saw a Raven while there and later a Charm of Goldfinches.

     

     

     

     

     

     

  • eurortraveller
    eurortraveller Club Member Posts: 6,830 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3434

    We have a brown hen blackbird (the French have a single word Merlette instead of our three). which has taken a liking for fat balls. Being unable to perch and hang on to a dangling bird feeder it has developed the humming bird technique of fluttering furiously to feed from them while hovering stationary in mid air, and after a week’s practice is getting better at it as each day goes by.

  • cyberyacht
    cyberyacht Forum Participant Posts: 10,218
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    edited July 2021 #3435

    Visited the WWT at Slimbridge yesterday. Last time I visited was 65 years ago! It's changed a bit. The cycle ride along the canal from our CL could have done with either a pair of secateurs or Boudicca's chariot to deal with the encroaching growth.

    Note to self: check E-bike battery before going off in the moho.

  • Pliers
    Pliers Forum Participant Posts: 1,864
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    edited July 2021 #3436

    This morning we had one of these small, wooden ground feeding tables in our garden.

    Back from an afternoon stroll to find 5 magpies tearing it to pieces 😱.

    Beyond repair, so it’s been binned. Never seen this sort of behaviour from corvids before. And don’t want to see it again! 
    🙂🙂🙂

  • Pliers
    Pliers Forum Participant Posts: 1,864
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    edited July 2021 #3437

    Bean goose, maybe….🤔

    Just a guess, I’m no expert! 🙂🙂🙂

  • nelliethehooker
    nelliethehooker Club Member Posts: 13,644 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3438

    Don't  think so, Pliers. Returned today and tha goose was on the water. Took a couple of snaps with my phone, but the bird was a way from the shore so not too clear. 

    Also spotted something  else in the water. This is an even worse  photo, but can anyone guess what it is?

  • Bakers2
    Bakers2 Forum Participant Posts: 8,196 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3439

    Don't know who got the biggest shock this morning.

    Quite a decent size and has stayed all day, I've just topped the food up again as it had all been eaten.

    Could it be a mummy to be?

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3440

    Could it be a Swan Goose, have been looking through goose photos! Don't know what the"something else" might be?!

    Swan Goose doesn't have yellow legs so maybe not....

  • Bakers2
    Bakers2 Forum Participant Posts: 8,196 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3441

    No hedgehog surprise this morning. All food gone, couple of ticks left behind so good clean out and freshen up before refilling the food bowl.

    Nelliethehooker I couldn't decide on the 'goose'. The unknown object could be a plastic bottle 🤣

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3442

    You will miss your hedgehog pals when you leave B2, hope you discover some new wildlife in your next abode.

  • Bakers2
    Bakers2 Forum Participant Posts: 8,196 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3443

    I'll miss all our wildlife, hedgehogs, squirrels foxes and a huge variety of birds that dine and nest in our garden. Not bad for a garden 20 minutes from the city centre.

    If and when we move, it will happen when the time is right, I'll do all I can to encourage wildlife. If the one we have an offer in on comes off there's lots of birds 🐦 so that's a good start!

  • Wherenext
    Wherenext Club Member Posts: 10,607 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3444

    Hi Nellie.

    The first 2 photos are of a Shelduck in Moult. Looks like it could well be a Juvenile as well.

    Haven't a clue on photo 3 as I can't get a decent look at it.

  • nelliethehooker
    nelliethehooker Club Member Posts: 13,644 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3445

    I would say that it wasn't a Shelduck, as it's legs were bright orange/yellow, not pink. The bill was jet black with a white band over the top where it meets the head.

    Looking on the Slimbridge web site it appears to be a Swan Goose, as suggested by brue, and, on another forum, Oneputt. It certainly looked like the large photo on the left.

    http://www.slim-bridge.co.uk/swan%20goose.html

     

  • nelliethehooker
    nelliethehooker Club Member Posts: 13,644 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3446

    I know the other photo is rubbish, but thought someone might have come up with a guess.

    In fact it is of a turtle. Seemingly there are at least two living in the reservoir and have been there for a couple of years at least. Guess someone had them as pets and eventually couldn't be bothered with them and got rid into the rezza. At least they seem to be surviving well there as they have overwintered at least once.

  • Wherenext
    Wherenext Club Member Posts: 10,607 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3447

     I've blown the photo up now on my Mac and agree it is a Swan Goose, so it will be an escapee from one of the Wildfowl centres, maybe Martinmere. Highly unlikely to be a wild bird but still an unusual spot and worthwhile seeing it. Any idea of whatever else is in photo 3? Can't get any definition on any machine I'm using.

  • nelliethehooker
    nelliethehooker Club Member Posts: 13,644 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3448

    See above...it's a turtle!! Don't often find them in our local waterways.

  • brue
    brue Forum Participant Posts: 21,176 ✭✭✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3449

    OH found this on a dog walk, we often find fossil remains in our fields. Millions of years ago our area was under tropical seas. smile

  • RedKite
    RedKite Club Member Posts: 1,717 ✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3450

    An interesting find brue have found a couple of bits on a Dorset beach and on Salisbury Plain quite a few years ago.

    Have been out and about this afternoon and on our way back called on our friends for a cuppa but before we got there in a village about 5 miles from them I really could not believe what I saw was a lady talking to another lady with a dog but the other lady had a lead and collar on not fully grown wild boar she just smiled as we went past not something you see everyday, only here in France we wondered whether it will remain a pet come the Autumn hunting season.

  • nelliethehooker
    nelliethehooker Club Member Posts: 13,644 ✭✭✭
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    edited July 2021 #3451

    An ammonite, goniatite,  or ceratite. It's difficult to tell the difference from a photo. Great for all the same.