What have you seen
Comments
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Stenocornus Meridianus-
PS-not me, I consulted a big Poster on the GK’s bedroom wall😊
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I have just looked in my insect book and agree with Rocky. have seen some strange beetles here and our friends have had some very large Longhorn Beetles on their wooden planks outside their place afraid they do not stay alive as they do a lot of damage to their wood.
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Thanks all, will have a good look through the relevant insect web pages when I get time. At least I know where to start now.👍
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High easterly winds along the East coast and really cold. Decided to take a chance and visit Minsmere. Didn’t go further than the Island hide but had a couple of cracking hours. Spotted 3 times Bitterns, a Purple Heron, multiple Reedlings. Cuckoo calling in the background. Now back in the van with warming cuppa
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Our SW weather is a strange mixture of biting north easterly winds with high overhead sunshine reaching 22C this afternoon! We saw some orchids on our walk today.
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We had a good spot last week, I forgot to post this. Our local Sparrowhawk checking out our big rose, which is full of sparrows. Sorry about photo quality, it was taken through door window, sticker is on to stop birds flying into glass….
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A lovely old Wing Nut tree at Clarks Outlet, they have a lot of specimen trees because the outlet was built in the old family gardens. OH collected seeds from the tree previously and we have a few saplings at home. The strange spiral round the trunk is due to fairy lights which I presume can be removed. Nice shady spot to sit whilst wondering if you've spent too much!?
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These two orchids I found last June on a walk some 15mins from home. Tomorrow I’m on a hunt to see if any are to be found a year on. Let’s hope so,
I think one is a marsh orchid and the other a heath orchid but I may well be wrong! Like so much of our wild flora and fauna orchids are under threat. Good to see Brue’s orchid photos too!
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Well thankfully several orchids found on that walk today, one regular visitor questioned why I was peering into the grass. He later told me that several plants had disappeared and that perfectly square holds around where they had been suggested spades had been used.☹️
Saw lots of sand martins, sky larks, buntings and warblers which I’m trying to now identify from my photos which are not brilliant. There had been a visiting eastern subalpine warbler reported close by which kept our eyes peeled. Not this time unfortunately!
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We found this youngster in our garden today, OH was just about to mow the lawn when he spotted it in the grass. Although we have a lot of visits from G Spotted woodpeckers there isn't a nearby nest and we think this fledgling may have been lifted from a nest. He had some food and water and we hope he can survive. Typical red cap on his/ her juvenile head.
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A lovely walk through a local nature reserve today to a Reservoir.
Lots of birdsong from the expected songsters but the sight that caught our eye was a huge and I mean huge, swathe of purple Foxgloves, hundreds of them on the far bank looking like Heather. There were plenty around where we were stood as well. Quite a sight.
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Walking today, which took in a stretch of coastal path. Quite a few cliffs for birds such as Fulmars to be seen on nests and an island not far offshore that was home to Gannets and Kittiwakes.
Sandwich Terns were patrolling the coves near the beaches and there was a pair of visiting Choughs presumably from those at South Stacks, not far away as the Corvid flies. Stonechats and Whitethroats on the Heath and scrub areas.
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We were on Clent Hills the other day, and while sitting having our lunch, around noon, there was lots of birdsong but it was very difficult to spot any. So I reverted to the Cornell Lab's Merlin app, and it indicated that there was a Redstart and a Nuthatch around, and also a Nightingale!! Is it possible that there were Nightingales in the area, or could it just be an error with the app?
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It’s very possible Nellie particularly if the calls were fairly short, territorial rather than mating. Looking at reports there have been a number of Golden Oriole's in various parts of the country, we heard one at Minsmere but didn’t see it
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Thanks, OP. I think that I will drop Worcestershire Wildlife Trust an email to see if they have any confirmed sightings in the area.
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On a lovely barmy evening sitting on our pitch drinking it all in (red wine in hand). A chiffchaff calling, blackbird singing, linnet on the bollard, sparrow hawk patrolling, swallows soaring, pigeons cooing, chaffinches shouting and a neighbour’s TV blurting out! Such bliss!😉
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"On a lovely barmy evening"……… "red wine in hand"
Does the latter explain the former? 😂😂😂0 -
👍🏻👍🏻🤣
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OP, I did in fact email the Trust last night, and this is the reply I received today :-
Thank you for getting in touch with us about the possible nightingale you recorded on the Client Hills. I’m afraid it’s really hard to be definitive based on the App in this case. It’s generally pretty reliable but it would be wholly possible for it to have caught a snatch of song thrush or blackcap (or even garden warbler) and mistaken it for nightingale, especially against the backdrop of lots of other noises. That’s reinforced by the fact that there are very few records of nightingale for the county nowadays and none that I know of from that area in the recent past. Of course, it’s always possible that it really was a nightingale but I think it’s perhaps the less likely of the possible options. Redstart and nuthatch are both highly likely though.
So perhaps I will hear or see one somewhere else, but not there!
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Today at our new CL we had the pleasure of watching more Swifts in the one location than we have seen over the whole of our 8 + week trip, along with Swallows and House Martins, and then down by the River Lune Sand Martins. I am being entertained by a very tuneful Robin, backed by a number of House Sparrows.
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At first I thought the bird that caught my eye was a yellowhammer, then the long tail gave it away. Haven’t seen a yellow wagtail in the UK since my youth. The occasional grey, yes, but this bird was predominantly yellow with a greenish back. I was well pleased.
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Just a couple of photos one the local town of Lalbenque when we were there the other day in a carpark was this unusual bee hive anyway when we came back to the car a lady arrived at her car next door to us and asked us if we wanted any information and went on to explain that this a local nature group who built and installed this bee have and the bees are wild honey bees and she opened a panel at the front so we could see the bees inside behind perspex and very busy very interesting and you see the warnings to not get too close the bees go in through the chimney at the top very interesting and more to go around the locality.
The second was taken through the lounge window so not as clear as the beehive and of a local green lizard and they can get unto 40cms in length so this was a bit smaller.
Managed to see a male Hoopoe today on our field then it flew off to check some tree stumps for insects and then flew into the next field and the female turned up and they flew off into a tree further away so that made my day and the Nightingale is still singing here even now great to hear.
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I’ve heard birds give alarm calls but yesterdays was truly exceptional. Two Magpies, that as far as I know aren’t nesting in our garden, literally barraging a cat with directed noise. The cat was cowering under a bush and when it tried to escape over the fence into the neighbours garden they followed it and continued the onslaught. The calls were very very noisy, health and safety wouldn’t have been pleased😂. However, given the cats reaction, I assume some of the frequency we couldn’t hear must have been painful to it. Eventually they gave up and the cat retreated.
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