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Wildlife lowlight of the week

(621 posts)
  • Started 6 years ago by dessert rat
  • Latest reply from jdanielp

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  1. dessert rat
    Member

    walked out of the office this morning to find a small bee trapped in a vortex of wind in the office doorway. Was getting very buffeted.

    Spent a few mins rescuing it and then placed it on a buddleia next to the office. No sooner had it appeared to regain its footing a gust of wind swept it away into the middle of the large puddle 20 feet below.

    welcome to Monday.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  2. paulmilne
    Member

    Watched a spider closing in on a trapped hoverfly in a web in my garden yesterday morning. I had to head off just as the spider was starting to wrap it up.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  3. gembo
    Member

    I fear the big swan family on the canal has reduced to mum, dad and five juveniles. Sorry

    Posted 6 years ago #
  4. Frenchy
    Member

    Wee fox cub lying by the canal towpath somewhere between Linlithgow and Glasgow.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  5. ARobComp
    Member

    Got attacked by a massive moth when on my turbo earlier. Terrifying. Came out of nowhere.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  6. claire3000006
    Member

    A red squirrel and hare lying on roads near Dollar :(

    Posted 6 years ago #
  7. paddyirish
    Member

    An enormous horse turd (several inches high) on the path above the Cramond Brig. Noticed it yesterday and this morning it had obviously been bisected by a bike wheel.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  8. Nelly
    Member

    Fox family 3 doors up has been scoffing pigeons at a remarkable rate.

    Last few weeks, remains of one in the front and one in the back garden.

    We also saw a young fox last friday late looking confused next to the Tesco metro at holy corner.

    It must be about time for the mothers to boot them out to the wider world.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  9. Blueth
    Member

    Waitrose?

    Posted 6 years ago #
  10. mgj
    Member

    Pigeon is a another plus for foxes but I'd love them even more if they ate seagulls

    Posted 6 years ago #
  11. gembo
    Member

    Seagulls too salty for foxes

    Posted 6 years ago #
  12. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    I can't get over @paddyirish reporting a horse turd on a cycling forum.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  13. paddyirish
    Member

    @IWRATS- it was the size of the thing that was notable, and the perfect split by the bike wheel had the potential to be a Turner Prize winning artwork.

    Sadly it has had at least one more encounter with a bike and is no longer noteworthy.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  14. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    I'm all in favour.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  15. I were right about that saddle
    Member

  16. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    IWRATS' despair knows no bounds. I think I would actually execute the [Rule 2]s who did this in cold blood.

    Many of us delight in the presence of breeding peregrines in the Pentlands close to the paths we ride. I know @unhurt will be hurt by this news.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  17. chdot
    Admin

    The investigation has now concluded and no further Police action is being taken at this time.

    That might be literally true, but it appears to indicate that they’ve stopped looking into who might have done it.

    Can’t be that many possibilities.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  18. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Can’t be that many possibilities.

    Tracksuited neds rarely travel by stolen bicycle to poison falcons. The categories of person which are known to be prosecuted for this are, in decreasing order; gamekeepers, farmers and racing pigeon enthusiasts.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  19. gembo
    Member

    That is grouse moor for certain. There was some discussion that the eagle was last detected a bit away from the grouse moors. But this one is grouse moor and can only be a few people responsible. I suppose the bird could take the bait at one location but die at another? It is not relevant as such but the location is not green cleuch. Green cleuch is north and east around Black Hill from the spot indicated. Looks more like Loganlea end of Black Hill. Still grouse moor.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  20. unhurt
    Member

    Disgusted and depressed. Gorgeous things enlivening a bit of increasingly blasted heath. I'd like to share the world with other beings not see everything but the "productive" eliminated in the hope of a tiny incremental increase in profit

    Posted 6 years ago #
  21. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Very fresh junior fox dead in a pose of repose in front of a garden gate in Colinton.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  22. unhurt
    Member

    Man fined after 'seal touching row' in Shetland

    "Sheriff Ian Cruickshank told him that no matter how honourable his intentions it was better to stay away from bearded seals in future."

    Posted 6 years ago #
  23. ejstubbs
    Member

    @gembo: "That is grouse moor for certain."

    While taking a walk over Hare Hill earlier this year (looking for the Ju88 crash memorial) we noticed a fair number of obviously pretty new grouse butts on the southern slopes of the hill. Someone put some money in to building those.

    I can imagine that someone who has just 'invested' a chunk of cash in a bird killing theme park might find themselves tempted to 'protect' that investment with a bit of illegal wildlife persecution. Any enterprise which relies on criminal acts in order to make money isn't a business: it's a racket (aka "organised crime", even?) People who make a living by breaking the law are criminals. Aren't they?

    There are grouse butts on Black Hill, Hare Hill, Carnethy Hill, South Back Hill and a number of other sites within the regional park. I've no idea how much use is actually made of them: I'm not aware of ever having been warned off any part of the park because shooting is going on.

    "...the location is not green cleuch. Green cleuch is north and east around Black Hill from the spot indicated. Looks more like Loganlea end of Black Hill."

    The location marked by the red star on the map in the article linked by IWRATS is marked as Green Cleuch on the OS 1:25,000 map, and on the map in the Pentland Hills Regional Park visitor guide. That location is also referred to as Green Cleuch in Susan Falconer's Walking in the Pentland Hills Cicerone guide. Even openstreetmap calls it Green Cleuch. (AFAICS the valley at the north-east end of Black Hill is Den's Cleuch.)

    The OS map seems to be quite clear that Green Cleuch runs south-east from the red star (grid reference approximately NT179624), towards the Logan Burn waterfalls.

    I would agree that the photo seems to show one of the bridges nearer the SE end of the Cleuch, though I'm not sure which one (we've not been back that way since our hike over Hare Hill).

    The aerial photo seems to have been taken from somewhere above Loganlea reservoir, looking WSW and showing at the left of centre where the SE end of Green Cleuch opens out and turns ENE towards the reservoir.

    All of which is by-the-by and peripheral to the actual issue of the ongoing persecution of wild birds within our regional park, and the authorities' apparent inability or lack of willing to take effective action against it. Don't we have vicarious liability on Scotland for persecution offences these days?

    I wasn't aware that a raven's nest had been attacked but I had noticed that there seemed to be far fewer of those fantastic birds about this year. People who do this sort of thing really are scumbags.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  24. ejstubbs
    Member

    @AWRATS: "Tracksuited neds rarely travel by stolen bicycle to poison falcons."

    I did once see a group of tracksuited neds mucking around with a crossbow on the track that leads to Bonaly Reservoir.

    I don't know what they were planning to shoot but I chose to leave the area rather swiftly.

    I don't think they were from the scout camp.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  25. gembo
    Member

    Turns out the cleuch I thought was Green Cleuch is Dens Cleuch. Man 31 years up the wrong cleuch

    Posted 6 years ago #
  26. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Don't we have vicarious liability on Scotland for persecution offences these days?

    We do, but;

    1) There has to be a prosecution of the immediate offence and there hardly ever is.
    2) There is a defense of 'reasonable steps'.
    3) You have to identify the landowner and this, remarkably, isn't always possible. Many estates are held offshore and in complex trusts.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  27. unhurt
    Member

    3) You have to identify the landowner and this, remarkably, isn't always possible. Many estates are held offshore and in complex trusts.

    Which is in my opinion ridiculous and not ok. (I am of course referring to Part A. Though, come to think of it...)

    Posted 6 years ago #
  28. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    http://www.whoownsscotland.org.uk has the two estates closest to the nest owned by real onshore human beings resident on the land in question. Black Hill isn't covered alas.

    Posted 6 years ago #
  29. gembo
    Member

    Spotted the estates but was directed to subscribe to whoownsscotland for details. Lord R and the B-Ss are the big landowners round here

    Posted 6 years ago #
  30. chdot
    Admin

    The 2017 report from Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) found many satellite-tracked birds were "killed illegally".

    But analysis by Ronnie Clancy QC for the Scottish Gamekeepers Association (SGA) said there was evidence of "unconscious bias".

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-45954568

    Posted 6 years ago #

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