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Wildlife highlight of the day

(7221 posts)

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  1. gembo
    Member

    @IWRATS, pas de crags on the Somerset Levels. - not me saying this - the programme on R4. I am away to check

    Ok Glastonbury TOr and Cheddar Gorge

    THis paper from 2007 would seem to be the progenitor of the prog on R4 today. Also states sea eagle using trees in poland not cliffs.

    I think it is very interesting but if bored just scroll to end of the paper before the references and there is the most brilliant photo of a sea eagle. Wingspan a go go

    https://www.britishbirds.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/article_files/V100/V100_N08/V100_N8_18_27.pdf

    Posted 4 years ago #

  2. ejstubbs
    Member

    @gembo: Also states sea eagle using trees in poland not cliffs.

    I'm absolutely certain that a non-zero quantity of the UK white-tailed eagles that have featured on Springwatch in the past have had their nests in trees rather than on cliffs. Rather like ospreys in fact.

    Somewhat dramatic example here from 2014 on Mull: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-scotland-28133440/footage-of-sea-eagle-raiding-scottish-springwatch-nest (The chick was returned to its nest by Forestry Commission staff, and turned up the next year in Dumfries and Galloway.)

    Posted 4 years ago #

  3. gembo
    Member

    @ejstubbs, trees in valleys or around lakes

    It was actually Rob Newman (the comic turned serious dude) who presented though seemed based somewhat on the paper I have cited above.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  4. fimm
    Member

    A couple of bullfinches outside the window this morning.
    Our resident magpie being very vocal about something just now.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  5. Rosie
    Member

    Hoodie of the 'hood snatching a twig off the clematis to make a nest which looks like it's high up on next door's chimney stack.

    Then the two hoodies sit in the bird bath, menacing and thuggish.

    I know they are running a protection racket. "Nice clematis you've got there. Shame if something would happen to it. A few more fat balls in the feeder and it will be left alone."

    Posted 4 years ago #

  6. minus six
    Member

    i used to be quite fond of magpies, but when you take time to observe closely, theyre all just radge neds out to cause trouble

    Posted 4 years ago #

  7. Rosie
    Member

    @bax - Covid-19/Corvid - co-incidence? I don't think so.

    Expect the ravens to leave the Tower and call every crow, rook and magpie in the land for the ultimate scavenge.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  8. gembo
    Member

    4 gold finches, one rusty red long haired Shetland pony that made me laugh, two quail, twen pochard

    2 people driving to the ex Jenners castle (one at high speed such that I went onto the grass verge) the next did brake

    In between hit 40mph going down Beech Ave so all fine. I think Char person and horse groomer going up to Bavelaw Castle.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  9. gembo
    Member

    @bax yes, the other species were mobbing the magpie at West Causeway End House today which as you know is near the source of the Water of Leith at Colzium,

    Posted 4 years ago #

  10. wingpig
    Member

    Some nice plump bumblebeebles in the pink flowery bush in the back garden. Some wee finch/tit things in the stickbush at the gate most mornings.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  11. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    I'm non-judgemental in regards to wildlife (but call me Rhadamanthus when it comes to humans) but I did once try to kill a magpie with a tennis racket as it tried to eat our blackbirds' babies in the nest.

    Now I have to Judge my own anthropomorphism.

    finch/tit things in the stickbush

    Well it is spring!

    Posted 4 years ago #

  12. Rosie
    Member

    I do admire magpies' chutzpah and terrific dress sense. They are James Bond at his most psychopathic.

    The bloke upstairs used to shoot them with an air gun because they were robbing small birds' nests.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  13. gembo
    Member

    Not all black and white with Magpies you know

    They have flashes of green and maybe purple?

    Posted 4 years ago #

  14. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Male sparrowhawk just picked a small bird off the hedge four metres in front of me. Air so still I heard it arrive, impact and depart. Rocket speed. Barely time to register on my eyes.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  15. gembo
    Member

    Small bird? Sparrow?

    Posted 4 years ago #

  16. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Didn't have time to see. Probably a tit. Luckily not the bullfinches;

    Posted 4 years ago #

  17. gembo
    Member

    Tithawk? (See your earlier spot up offy at Ratcliffe Tce?)

    Posted 4 years ago #

  18. Rosie
    Member

    Wee field mouse startled me when I was weeding the border.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  19. amir
    Member

    First osprey of the season for me. Could be the last given restrictions.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  20. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Sparrowhawk banking hard about 20m over the garden with a small passerine going hell for leather about a metre from its foe's talons.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  21. gembo
    Member

    Loving the narrowing down of the possible bird type from small bird to small passerine. though would ask - any big passerines? Atlantic canary lives 10 years but the Sparra lives 3 short brutish years

    Posted 4 years ago #

  22. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Ravens are the biggest. It would be a gallus gled chased one of those.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  23. gembo
    Member

    Shrikes get mentioned as the only exclusively carnivorous passerine. Most lay coloured eggs whereaS most non-passerines lay white eggs. Given its yer feet that make you a passerine, that is QI about the egg colours.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  24. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Peregrine falcon circling high over south suburban Edinburgh. Got the bins on it as outside for salad luncheon.

    Edinburgh a bit of a peregrine desert and I don't know why. Much food, much nest-ledges much green space.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  25. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    PS swallows are passerines and exclusively carnivorous?

    Posted 4 years ago #

  26. Frenchy
    Member

    Think I glimpsed a swallow in Moredun this morning. Definitely saw one at Harlaw.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  27. gembo
    Member

    @Iwrats, you gone vegan? Your shrike is an eater of small bivalves and mammals (checking this now). Your swallow swallows bugs.

    Never thought of a raven as perching on a tree but they have the feet for it.

    Ah yes shrike will take a mouse/vole then hang it on the barbed wire until nice and ripe.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  28. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Do bugs not also bleed?

    I have a weakness for the vegan doner kebab sold in Sainsburys. Oven chips, nice salad, wholemeal pitta. Hot hot chilli sauce. Vegan junk food.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  29. gembo
    Member

    Yer ethical vegan may eat all sorts of junk - Markies do a vegan hoisin duck.

    I have wrangled tofu in the past. Lot of work people still spot it is tofu. Tempeh also is rank.

    Halloumi now made ethically from happy Cypriot sheep I do like to griddled. Not vegan but certainly food.

    A lot of this TVP/ fake vegan meat stuff is as bad as Halva.

    Posted 4 years ago #

  30. I were right about that saddle
    Member

    Halva gives you salmonella according to the internet.

    Posted 4 years ago #

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