The Wildlife (and Gardening for Wildlife) thread

[Pink_Panda]

I had one fly in my bedroom years ago. Didn't know at the time it was a stag beetle.

[6Foot2]

Link: Asian Hornet UK Interactive Sightings Map

 

 

[At the time of posting] There are 19 data points on the map corresponding to:

 

Ashford, Kent

Bath, Somerset

Brockenhurst, Hampshire

Bury, Lancashire

Christchurch, Dorset (Twice)

Dungeness, Kent

Fowey, Cornwall (Twice)

Gosport, Hampshire

Guildford, Surrey

Hull, Yorkshire

Liskeard, Cornwall

Lower Langford, Somerset

New Alresford, Hampshire

New Milton, Hampshire

Tamworth area, Staffordshire

Tetbury, Gloucestershire

Woolacombe, Devon

[elsiegee40]

Two of the babies that I have been feeding at the rescue today

 

A Treecreeper that dozed off in my hand

 

And a Pied Wagtail

 

 

Their cuteness made up for the row of the starlings. The rescue has supplied ear defenders for us to use if it gets too much!

[Andrew_C]

Someone wandered in, passing the food dish, and scurried behind the sofa...

 

[elsiegee40]

Hedgehogs shouldn’t be out in the daytime, but at this time of year mothers with hoglets keep strange hours.

 

If they’re moving with purpose then they’re fine. If they’re listless, really smelly or obviously injured then they need to go to a rescue.

 

[Andrew_C]

Ours are definitely moving with purpose. Normally straight to the food dish...

[elsiegee40]

Ours are definitely moving with purpose. Normally straight to the food dish...

 

Ours too! [emoji23]

[tg12]

This is making me miss the hedgehogs that roam my parents’ garden. I’d often sit out in the dark in the summer stargazing, only to be interrupted by snuffling as they came by. Or the ones that got, well… frisky late at night outside my bedroom window!

[mikeprice]

 

 

swans, cygnets, ducks, ducklings

 

 

and a canal - probably fish under the surface

[elsiegee40]

We have a leucistic (very pale) starling among the rabble at our feeders

[mikeprice]

Had a couple of days away in Llandudno because we needed to see someone there

 

For those with a long memory - I used to live there.

 

Took this on a walk along the front in the early morning

 

 

 

Don;t be fooled by the placid calm exterior quietly paddling along looking like a duck

 

THIS IS AN EVIL THIEVING AGGRESSIVE TERRORISING BAR STEWARD!!!!!!

 

 

All the damn gull in Llandudno are!!

 

they haven't changed!

 

might even be the one that stole my pie on the front when I lived there

 

or the one who swooped under the awning I was under and knicked my Ice Cream

or the one of the ones that tries to steal my chips on numerous occasions

 

 

probably related to some of the ones that used to swoop around a school further along the coast - when I used to work there - and after the end of break turned the quad into something between a scene Hitchcock had to delete from 'The Birds' for being too scary - and a gull version of Perl Harbour!!!!!

 

 

 

 

p.s. I don;t like gulls

 

 

(p.p.s. have we done the - 'there are no such thing as seagulls - they are gulls' thing - or was that a 'conversation' I had on another forum?????)

[elsiegee40]

Bee news:

 

Our leafcutters are way behind schedule, but we do at least have this male occupying a hole in the bee hotel on the lookout for the girls. This time last year, we had 3 channels in the bee hotel full already. None so far this year.

 

In the red mason bee hotel observation drawer, I have been watching the larva develop… then today there was weird squiggly stuff going on in a few of the cells. I have been told that this is Houdini Fly excrement. The fly lays its eggs in the cells of mason bees. The fly larvae eat all the pollen and the baby bee starves to death. Sad for my bees, but I find it interesting nonetheless

[mikeprice]

OOO hang on - forgot this one

 

 

 

the family are growing up!!

 

 

 

ACtually there seem to be a lot of chicks of various type on teh canal

 

 

not sure how many will last the winter - but it looks good so far!!!

Edited June 24, 2021 by mikeprice

[mikeprice]

this picture is Carp

 

 

 

 

 

Ok maybe not carp

but not trout

and not pike

 

after that I get lost

[elsiegee40]

this picture is Carp

 

 

 

[ATTACH=CONFIG]62354[/ATTACH]

 

 

Ok maybe not carp

but not trout

and not pike

 

after that I get lost

 

Mr gee40 says “probably a Bream”

[tg12]

Got second broods of coots in the pond at Chiswick House near me. Exciting to see them!

 

[elsiegee40]

Got second broods of coots in the pond at Chiswick House near me. Exciting to see them!

 

[ATTACH]62386[/ATTACH]

 

So cute… the moorhens on the pond near us are sitting on their third brood.

 

Last year they got 10 chicks to independence from 3 broods. The first brood was hatched 8 of which 5 made it to adulthood. I think they may have been victim to egg dumping by a second female on the first brood; apparently it’s quite common in moorhens,

 

 

This year 2 out of 3 made from the first brood and 3 out of 3 from the second have made it to adulthood.

[tg12]

When I saw the first batches, I saw two families with two chicks each. This batch has 7 in one family! Big group. So lovely to see them though, part of the reason why I love where I live!

[6Foot2]

Link:

[Video Tweet]

 

A long, lingering goodbye as a rescue bird is finally released back into the wild...

 

Click the link above for the video.

 

[elsiegee40]

I released 6 Great Spotted Woodpeckers today… they didn’t exactly hang around either Edited June 30, 2021 by elsiegee40

[stevejp]

I released 6 Great Spotted Woodpeckers today… they didn’t exactly hang around either

 

Probably in case they were spotted…

 

Edited June 30, 2021 by elsiegee40

[elsiegee40]

Today’s baby birds at the rescue included 3 Goldcrest nestlings and 4 one day old Robin hatchlings (two of them hatched at the rescue). Both nests were in trees that people failed to check before doing work on them

 

These tiny beaks have to be fed with a tiny drop of hand rearing mix on the end of a fine paintbrush every 15 minutes. It’s fiddly and time-consuming and all the bigger babies need feeding too.

[jmak]

I have a duck living on our roof!

 

I'll get a photo if I can. There is a vine growing across it and it's single story. It's a female mallard and I think it might be sitting on eggs given how much of the day it spends there.

 

Previously I've seen a drake perching on the ridge of the roof for up to half an hour at a time. I thought that was mad - it didn't occur to me that they'd try and live up there!

[elsiegee40]

They nest in the most peculiar places. How high is it? The next problem is getting them down when they hatch. The parents will try to lead them to water and they’ll have to jump unless they can be caught and lowered in a bucket or something Edited July 2, 2021 by elsiegee40

[jmak]

It's an old stable building. The eaves are about 2m (I can reach the gutter) and the place I've seen the duck go in is about 1 to 1.5m higher than that.