spuggies and jackdaws and hedgehogs and frogs

[ivans82]

20 hours ago, Red Willow said:

Well our nesting birds laid 8 egg, all hatched and were doing so well until this weekend. The hatchlings started to make a noise. 

There were 8 then 5 now 3. Discovered the woodpecker had plucked the others out of the box. Hubby has added long screws to stop her getting close. Hope the 3 make it to fledge.

Good idea  .   Some boxes have metal around the hole to stop the woodpeckers making the hole larger so they can get the young out .

[The Hallucinating Goose]

 

 

[ivans82]

The other day my brother in law noticed a young Chaffinch had got trapped in a gap between his garage and a raised vegetable bed too narrow to get his hand in .  He wired a dessert spoon on the end of a cane and lowered it down . The bird happily climbed on the spoon and he brought it up.......like a Chilean miner He said .

A few days later  an adult Robin was alarming outside the Kitchen door which he usually left open in warm weather .He looked out  , no cats  , no Magptes or anything and sat back down . He then heard a chirp from inside the house , he lives in a bungalow and checked the bathroom and bedrooms went down the hallway and into the living room and there was a fledgling Robin sitting on the grate .He picked it up and returned it to it`s Mother another bird drama solved .

[Ullman]

On 17/05/2024 at 23:03, Leeds Wire said:

A friend told me about the 'Merlin Bird ID' app, which is free to download but quite a big file on your phone, I think 1.2 GB.

You simply click on listen and the app identifies every bird it hears and flicks between them as they sing. It's absolutely remarkable. 

I walk a lot with my dog and I can ID birds I see, but to be able to know what birds are around that you can hear but usually not see is wonderful. 

Just the other day it picked up things like willow ######, cliff chaff and gold crest; birds that are all around us but you wouldn't know it. 

I'm slightly addicted to it!

Tried the app out today and was very impressed.

Thanks for recommending.

[Futtocks]

18 minutes ago, Ullman said:

Tried the app out today and was very impressed.

Thanks for recommending.

Merlin is especially useful if there's a really noisy bird you can't identify. By the time you've opened the app and selected the "listen" function, that bird will have clammed up completely and you won't hear it again.

BTW, install the "Western Palearctic" pack, rather than the "Europe: Britain & Ireland" or "Europe" packs. Western Palearctic covers Europe, Scandinavia and North Africa, so you can ID unexpected migrants who have, like Withnail & I, gone on holiday by mistake.

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

On 22/05/2024 at 08:57, ivans82 said:

The other day my brother in law noticed a young Chaffinch had got trapped in a gap between his garage and a raised vegetable bed too narrow to get his hand in .  He wired a dessert spoon on the end of a cane and lowered it down . The bird happily climbed on the spoon and he brought it up.......like a Chilean miner He said .

A few days later  an adult Robin was alarming outside the Kitchen door which he usually left open in warm weather .He looked out  , no cats  , no Magptes or anything and sat back down . He then heard a chirp from inside the house , he lives in a bungalow and checked the bathroom and bedrooms went down the hallway and into the living room and there was a fledgling Robin sitting on the grate .He picked it up and returned it to it`s Mother another bird drama solved .

I once spotted a very agitated female blackbird flitting between the fence and the front of my garage. after watching her for a few minutes I went out and opened the garage door to find one of her young hiding behind a bin. I guessed it must have gone in the previous evening thinking it had found a safe roost for the night!

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

 

[DavidM]

I’ve had to cart two blackbirds out of my kitchen when the door was open and I left the sultana tin on the top . To say they love sultanas well marinated in water is an understatement 

[ivans82]

On 17/05/2024 at 14:15, ivans82 said:

Found a Chiffchaff nest with 6 newly hatched young last night , right by a layby in a pile of dead leaves . Parked the car within a yard of the nest and the female bird carried on feeding the young going backwards and forwards without a care in the world ....Cars make great bird hides .......further down the road a Great Spotted Woodpecker is nesting in a telegraph pole by the roadside for the 4th consecutive year .

Chiffchaffs are now a couple of days off fledging  and have had a narrow escape . Some complete ######## has fly tipped a heap of garden fencing , just missing the nest , the quicker they can fledge the better .

[Les Tonks Sidestep]

Mrs M went to her mum's today and wondered what was tapping on the patio door.....

[Padge]

Magpie swooped into our back garden today and snatched a fledgling sparrow and sat munching it at the end of the garden. Seen them remove eggs from a nest in the garden in the past but seeing one take live prey is a new one. 

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

About an hour ago, I went outside to sit on the garden seat on the patio and watch for bats.  There were just a couple - one of pipistrelle size and the other a bit bigger.  Neither came out of our loft space and neither were as big as the serotine bats who sometimes inhabit our loft.

Stealing the show, however, was a song thrush that flew into the highest tree in my next door neighbour's garden and then gave a brilliant, virtuoso recital for the best part of ten minutes.  I cannot be sure, but I suspect it never repeated a previous phrase.  The beautiful strength and clarity of its singing was just stunning; you cannot beat nature like this!

[Sidi Fidi Gold]

16 hours ago, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

About an hour ago, I went outside to sit on the garden seat on the patio and watch for bats.  There were just a couple - one of pipistrelle size and the other a bit bigger.  Neither came out of our loft space and neither were as big as the serotine bats who sometimes inhabit our loft.

Stealing the show, however, was a song thrush that flew into the highest tree in my next door neighbour's garden and then gave a brilliant, virtuoso recital for the best part of ten minutes.  I cannot be sure, but I suspect it never repeated a previous phrase.  The beautiful strength and clarity of its singing was just stunning; you cannot beat nature like this!

I must admit, I do sometimes stand at the back door at dusk, with a cuppa and watch the bats, my wife thinks I'm quite mad.

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

On 30/05/2024 at 14:42, Sidi Fidi Gold said:

I must admit, I do sometimes stand at the back door at dusk, with a cuppa and watch the bats, my wife thinks I'm quite mad.

You are mad, SFG.  Good for you!

[Leeds Wire]

On 27/05/2024 at 14:16, DavidM said:

I’ve had to cart two blackbirds out of my kitchen when the door was open and I left the sultana tin on the top . To say they love sultanas well marinated in water is an understatement 

Will other birds like magpies and wood pigeons also eat them? I always throw out fruit that's 'on the turn' and the blackbirds love it, but the magpies have started to dominate that part of the menu.

I'd love to think that there's something I can chuck out for the blackbirds that the magpies won't snaffle first.

Also... 

We've got bifold doors at the back of our house and throw them open on warm days - we've now had to move the dog's food bowl because the magpies were walking into the kitchen and eating his scran. Cheeky rascals. 

I have a grudging admiration for magpies as they are so clever, just like carrion crows who will follow me round the park if I've got sunflower seeds or peanuts on me. They're not bothered by my admittedly harmless dog and will shout each other to let each other know I'm around. 

[ivans82]

Hatching time for Great Spotted Woodpeckers up here in West Cumbria been round my usual nest holes and yet again a Nuthatch had taken one over . They place mud around the woodpecker hole to make it smaller so as the woodies can`t get in . Woodpecker numbers also seem to be down this year .

[DavidM]

12 hours ago, Leeds Wire said:

Will other birds like magpies and wood pigeons also eat them? I always throw out fruit that's 'on the turn' and the blackbirds love it, but the magpies have started to dominate that part of the menu.

I'd love to think that there's something I can chuck out for the blackbirds that the magpies won't snaffle first.

Also... 

We've got bifold doors at the back of our house and throw them open on warm days - we've now had to move the dog's food bowl because the magpies were walking into the kitchen and eating his scran. Cheeky rascals. 

I have a grudging admiration for magpies as they are so clever, just like carrion crows who will follow me round the park if I've got sunflower seeds or peanuts on me. They're not bothered by my admittedly harmless dog and will shout each other to let each other know I'm around. 

I don’t have magpies but I do have two pairs of jackdaws . They attack my peanut feeder and they can actually get them out through the holes and I pretty much have to fill it most days . They also destroy a fat ball in no time . The wood pigeon doesn’t bother with fruit either nor the feral pigeons  ( which do my head in and I want rid of but can’t get rid of ) . The only thing that goes for the sultanas is the starling ( and lots of babies I seem to have adopted) so basically the blackbirds have that feast on their own … and boy do they crave endless sultanas . I  can barely walk in the kitchen for them following me on the window sill or even sitting on the kitchen door handle and knocking on the door. I also put the sultanas in plenty of water as they like to drink the juice out of the feeder on the window I put them in . I bought 6 bags in Tesco so that should do me a day or two …

[Wiltshire Warrior Dragon]

It is customary to note when one heard a cuckoo for the first time each year, but what about the last time?

I know I am lucky in this day and age to hear one or more calling on the majority of days from when they arrive in early April, in the course of my daily dog walks in the New Forest.  However, I have not heard one since 11th June and I think I probably won't hear another this year.

No doubt some that arrived a couple of months ago are now on their way back to Africa or already there.

With such a brief stay in this country - not to mention their distinctive call which cannot be confused with anything else - it is no wonder that they are considered such harbingers of summer.

[Futtocks]

My sister just showed me a video shot from her kitchen window of the local family of stoats, cavorting manically in the garden.

[Sidi Fidi Gold]

2 hours ago, Wiltshire Warrior Dragon said:

It is customary to note when one heard a cuckoo for the first time each year, but what about the last time?

I know I am lucky in this day and age to hear one or more calling on the majority of days from when they arrive in early April, in the course of my daily dog walks in the New Forest.  However, I have not heard one since 11th June and I think I probably won't hear another this year.

No doubt some that arrived a couple of months ago are now on their way back to Africa or already there.

With such a brief stay in this country - not to mention their distinctive call which cannot be confused with anything else - it is no wonder that they are considered such harbingers of summer.

I haven't heard a Cuckoo, locally, for years, even as a kid, I used to hear them every year but not very often, I did manage to see one on a couple of occasions though.

[Futtocks]

Went out to Bempton Cliffs earlier today, and saw tons of everything but puffins. Well, we saw one very clearly, as he clearly wasn't expecting us and did a hurried u-turn. Any others were very hard to properly ID from above and so far away, especially without some form of magnifying lens.

Some dolphins also passed by while we were there.

Then, on the way back over the Wolds, we saw a pretty large raptor, but couldn't stop to get a better look at the time. It looked like similar colouring of brown plumage and yellow beak to a Golden Eagle, but not that big.

Edited June 22 by Futtocks

[Padge]

This fledgling is being looked after by two guys around the corner from our hotel in Crete. They are keeping him cool in the extreme heat by bathing him and they are feeding him. Looks a little stronger each day.

 

Edited June 23 by Padge

[Sidi Fidi Gold]

I actually saw a Chaffinch in the garden today, it must be at least 10 years since I saw one.

Back in the early 2000s, you could see them virtually all year round and in the winter you could see 5 or 6 at once.

The ironic thing is, for the last 5 years or so, there's been one singing in a tree about 20 yards from the front door.

[Lowdesert]

On 24/06/2024 at 16:34, Sidi Fidi Gold said:

I actually saw a Chaffinch in the garden today, it must be at least 10 years since I saw one.

Back in the early 2000s, you could see them virtually all year round and in the winter you could see 5 or 6 at once.

The ironic thing is, for the last 5 years or so, there's been one singing in a tree about 20 yards from the front door.

Indeed.  But I think they are still up there as one of the most popular birds.

 

[Futtocks]

I just had to evict an Elephant Hawk Moth that flew in through the kitchen door. A beautiful big creature, mainly pink but with green markings and looking far too tropical for the North of England.