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Post by shevii on Jan 23, 2022 13:20:51 GMT
When the board was set up I did mention about maybe having a thread for nature (discussion and pictures) as I know there are quite a lot of nature lovers on the forum ( colin , davwel for starters) and I'm interested to see some of their pictures- might even give me ideas for holidays. Also with people now posting their cats on the main thread (I love this but others won't) and a general rise in photos cluttering up the main thread I thought it would be worth a try to move that type of thing over to it's own thread.  If this doesn't take off I'll just ask Mark to delete but thought it was worth a try. To get the ball rolling here's my top find, albeit very grainy, of what I'm told is a two year old female goshawk who we saw in our garden munching on a woodpigeon.  Attachment Deleted*** I may have to edit several times as trying out a web based picture hosting site which I can then give instructions to people who want to add a full sized picture rather than the tiny ones that people have been posting*** *** Giving up now and will ask Mark- the link to the image is imgur.com/z2H1rbx but can't seem to show at full size- funny as when the forum was set up I was able to post a full size image but not sure if settings have been changed?*** |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2022 13:56:28 GMT
hi shevii-thats a nice shot. The brown colouring and heavy barring on the breast certainly signal juv. Goshawk. Wow! Very nice. Do you have a big garden?. Are you near to woodland/woodland edge -goshawk habitat? Would love TOH to have been here for this thread-nice idea. I don't take many pics now but have a lot from earlier. Do you intend just random photos ? I'm afraid I won't be posting cat pics.I cant stand them. RSPB estimate they kill 40m birds in UK per annum -and twice as many small mammals. |
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Post by shevii on Jan 23, 2022 14:38:38 GMT
hi shevii -thats a nice shot. The brown colouring and heavy barring on the breast certainly signal juv. Goshawk. Wow! Very nice. Do you have a big garden?. Are you near to woodland/woodland edge -goshawk habitat? Would love TOH to have been here for this thread-nice idea. I don't take many pics now but have a lot from earlier. Do you intend just random photos ? I'm afraid I won't be posting cat pics.I cant stand them. RSPB estimate they kill 40m birds in UK per annum -and twice as many small mammals. We're ten minutes walk away from woods and fields where most days you are likely to see Buzzards and/or Kestrels but the other sides are built up (so 1 minute walk to main road). I guess I could post up a picture of a kestrel sat on a post in a field near us but hoping Mark can tell me how to make it full size rather than having to click on the photo to make it full size. Not a huge garden, although bigger than most I would think (maybe 20 foot by 40 foot). Have had a Sparrowhawk also munching on a pigeon in our garden but not aware of any specific breeding areas and this was the first one we had ever seen. It's up to others what this thread might look like and as you say a real shame TOH isn't around to post some piccies of his travels. It's just when you and TOH and others have talked about these things on the old forum it would have been great to see a picture. I knew about you and cats and do understand what you're saying, although I believe RSPB also say that it's not a huge issue to them because mostly bird populations are under threat from losing their habitats and places to nest & breed and that cats not killing them wouldn't help with that key issue? Maybe they just say that because they don't want to put off cat lovers from supporting them? |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2022 15:17:42 GMT
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Post by shevii on Jan 23, 2022 20:00:04 GMT
Impressed with that owl picture- only seen them twice in the wild- one was a bit worrying as it was a baby looking owl just sitting in a tree next to a road with a stream of tourists walking past and taking photos so didn't know whether it needed a mum and whether the mum was still around. The other was in our woods where we were having a semi extended family day out and there was a photo op with a hollowed out tree trunk- no-one knew there was an owl there until it flew out over someone's head. Went back a week or so later and it was still there- got a very dark and grainy picture but didn't want to disturb it again or use a flash so you can only make out an outline which isn't worth posting up.
Do owls often sit on fence posts in the open like that?
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Post by Deleted on Jan 23, 2022 20:10:12 GMT
sheviiYes. If they are hungry enough Barn Owls feed during the day. My favourite is the Short Eared Owl. They breed on northern moors and winter in the south .You can see them hunting in the late afternoon. RSPB Elmley in Kent is a great place to see them.-usually by the car park !:- www.youtube.com/watch?v=NguvJ7Oeuwg
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Post by mandolinist on Jan 23, 2022 21:23:49 GMT
Thanks for this Shevii, it is a nice place to come and share some other stuff. I really struggle to get decent photos of wildlife, but am only too happy to share sightings etc.
My best for this year so far was a premature smooth newt in my pond on 5th January, more than a month before the first appearance last year and now we have had a number of bitterly cold nights with the pond frozen over on at least four occasions.
No goshawks in my garden, but tawny owls calling nightly at the moment.
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Post by alec on Jan 23, 2022 22:58:13 GMT
I was going to complain about the fact that UKPR2 is drifting into all sorts of areas already well covered on the interwebthingy, like cats (I'm a cat lover, btw) and wildlife pictures, but then I saw the photos and relented. Why not? colin - like the barn owl shot. I've seen them rarely up here (three sightings in 30+ years) but oddly enough, this winter I've seen a further three daylight sightings. Two were close to our village, probably the same bird, but it's odd to suddently start seeing them. All the sightings came after periods of high wind and rain, so I suspect they were hungry after not being able to hunt. shevii - are you sure it was a sparrowhawk eating a pigeon? That would be really rather a big catch for one of them. |
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Post by mandolinist on Jan 23, 2022 23:09:01 GMT
I was going to complain about the fact that UKPR2 is drifting into all sorts of areas already well covered on the interwebthingy, like cats (I'm a cat lover, btw) and wildlife pictures, but then I saw the photos and relented. Why not? colin - like the barn owl shot. I've seen them rarely up here (three sightings in 30+ years) but oddly enough, this winter I've seen a further three daylight sightings. Two were close to our village, probably the same bird, but it's odd to suddently start seeing them. All the sightings came after periods of high wind and rain, so I suspect they were hungry after not being able to hunt. shevii - are you sure it was a sparrowhawk eating a pigeon? That would be really rather a big catch for one of them. Alec, there is quite a bit of evidence around, wildlife trusts, BTO etc. that barn owl numbers are starting to rise after a long period of decline, partly due to more nest boxes and field margin habitat being improved.
We have had three pigeons killed by sparrowhawks in the garden in the past few months, they were all feral pigeons, so smaller than wood pigeons, and I saw the female sparrow hawk with one kill. They tend to decapitate the pigeon and take the breast leaving the rest of the carcass.
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Post by alec on Jan 23, 2022 23:33:23 GMT
mandolinist - that's interesting - thanks. I read a paper a long time ago about sparrowhawks and predation on pheasants. It found that because the larger female sits on the nest, the timing of hatchings meant that there were only a few days when pheasant chicks were liable to predation from sparrowhawks, so I was surprised about the pigeon, but the feral.woodpigeon distinction makes sense. We see sparrowhawks here too on occasion. No pictures, but my highlight from 2021 was sea eagles over Kentra Bay. I had three sea eagles in my binocular vision simultaneously. I don't see them in my garden.
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Post by shevii on Jan 24, 2022 8:45:46 GMT
shevii - are you sure it was a sparrowhawk eating a pigeon? That would be really rather a big catch for one of them. Picture was Goshawk. I didn't know at all at all but sent it to someone who posted on wildlife on forum and some expert came back with a specific ID where initially they had assumed Sparrowhawk. But we did also have what I'm told is a Sparrowhawk (they look the same to me!) doing the same thing:  imgur.com/a/mqVxJ4YAttachment Deleted |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 24, 2022 11:35:35 GMT
shevii - are you sure it was a sparrowhawk eating a pigeon? That would be really rather a big catch for one of them. Picture was Goshawk. I didn't know at all at all but sent it to someone who posted on wildlife on forum and some expert came back with a specific ID where initially they had assumed Sparrowhawk. But we did also have what I'm told is a Sparrowhawk (they look the same to me!) doing the same thing: imgur.com/a/mqVxJ4Y<button disabled="" class="c-attachment-insert--linked o-btn--sm">Attachment Deleted</button> This is their UK distribution. Does it fit with your garden? /photo/1 |
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Post by shevii on Jan 24, 2022 13:26:03 GMT
This is their UK distribution. Does it fit with your garden? There's not a dot over our area but I don't think we are miles away from an area with a handful of dots- depends how far they are likely to go? |
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Post by Deleted on Jan 25, 2022 1:15:42 GMT
Just stumbled across this thread. Refreshingly different. Pheasants are beautiful creatures, but sadly not the sharpest tools in the box. Twice in the last couple of weeks I have had to brake sharply to avoid one on local roads as they nonchalantly saunter across the road.
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Post by mandolinist on Jan 25, 2022 11:14:40 GMT
Just stumbled across this thread. Refreshingly different. Pheasants are beautiful creatures, but sadly not the sharpest tools in the box. Twice in the last couple of weeks I have had to brake sharply to avoid one on local roads as they nonchalantly saunter across the road. Beautiful yes, but a bloody pest in my area. Hundreds of thousands released into the countryside every year and thousands left after the shooting season to compete with wild birds for scarce winter resources, wander onto roads to cause accidents and potentially another reservoir for bird flu. They don't even taste all that good, many are just thrown away after the shoots because no one wants to eat them, a total environmental nightmare. In my opinion.
I hope this post doesn't stir up too much controversy on what should be a nice and occasionaly exciting corner of UKPR, apologies if it isn't in the spirit of the thread.
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Post by shevii on Jan 25, 2022 12:25:29 GMT
Beautiful yes, but a bloody pest in my area. Hundreds of thousands released into the countryside every year and thousands left after the shooting season to compete with wild birds for scarce winter resources, wander onto roads to cause accidents and potentially another reservoir for bird flu. They don't even taste all that good, many are just thrown away after the shoots because no one wants to eat them, a total environmental nightmare. In my opinion.
I hope this post doesn't stir up too much controversy on what should be a nice and occasionaly exciting corner of UKPR, apologies if it isn't in the spirit of the thread.
We were sat in a hut tub in the Lake District at some hotel we were staying at and got the shock of our lives when a pheasant virtually jumped in with us- no idea how it got within striking distance and where he came from. On the walk we do from our doorstep which covers some farmers fields it's a rare treat to see a pheasant- maybe twice in two years and I don't think there is anywhere round here where they would be bred for shooting. Crazy though on the roads in an area with lots of them- can't see any of them getting a GCSE! |
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Post by leftieliberal on Jan 25, 2022 12:54:34 GMT
Some American animals from the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum west of Tucson (https://www.desertmuseum.org/). Photos taken by me in 2012. Bobcat, Grey Fox, Peccary (the virtues of having a camera with a good telephoto zoom lens). Attachment DeletedAttachment DeletedAttachment Deleted |
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Post by mandolinist on Jan 25, 2022 12:56:39 GMT
Beautiful yes, but a bloody pest in my area. Hundreds of thousands released into the countryside every year and thousands left after the shooting season to compete with wild birds for scarce winter resources, wander onto roads to cause accidents and potentially another reservoir for bird flu. They don't even taste all that good, many are just thrown away after the shoots because no one wants to eat them, a total environmental nightmare. In my opinion.
I hope this post doesn't stir up too much controversy on what should be a nice and occasionaly exciting corner of UKPR, apologies if it isn't in the spirit of the thread.
We were sat in a hut tub in the Lake District at some hotel we were staying at and got the shock of our lives when a pheasant virtually jumped in with us- no idea how it got within striking distance and where he came from. On the walk we do from our doorstep which covers some farmers fields it's a rare treat to see a pheasant- maybe twice in two years and I don't think there is anywhere round here where they would be bred for shooting. Crazy though on the roads in an area with lots of them- can't see any of them getting a GCSE! Shevii, I now have a rather disturbing image of you and your loved one leaping naked from the hot tub in some distress  Pretty much all the large landowners on the outskirts of Bristol run pheasant shoots, so they are everywhere around here, some even straying into the city.
On a tangent, I once saw a Lady Amerhurst pheasant in Kew Gardens now that was a beautiful bird. Lots of ring necked parakeets in that area too, which I really like, but know plenty of serious environmentalists see them as pests. They are beginning to appear regularly in the Bristol birding report, so they are spreading out too. My favourite non-native bird though is the little owl, would love a pair of them in the garden. I wonder if they eat slugs?
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Post by mandolinist on Jan 28, 2022 9:34:15 GMT
Is anyone doing the garden bird watch this weekend? Perhaps we could piggy back the same model and get our set of results out first? Hopefully the RSPB wouldn't object.
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Post by shevii on Jan 28, 2022 15:07:37 GMT
Is anyone doing the garden bird watch this weekend? Perhaps we could piggy back the same model and get our set of results out first? Hopefully the RSPB wouldn't object. Never done one and not sure how to. The only one I do is great butterfly count but I always think this isn't very scientific because it depends on the weather and you tend to think about doing it when the weather is nice, you can't normally tell the small white ones apart unless they settle and of course it's only in one month with variable patterns for when butterflies emerge depending on conditions- some types might come out earlier/later than normal and not be around at the same time as previous years. Anthony would probably have kittens with the methodology! |
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2022 16:58:16 GMT
Reading this winter's bird reports it is easy to forget what is unfolding before our eyes. The northward shift in range of many bird species -presumably in response to climate change. I suppose age helps-being able to make comparisons with a few decades ago. I thought a list of some of the more exotic species might be of interest. In the seventies, Little Egret ( a bird whose crest was once worth more than gold ) (a) was a rarity. It is now a breeding resident along the south coast; and overwinters as far as the NE coast . A few decades ago, Great White Egret (b)was an annual rarity in UK. First breeding here ten years ago, it now overwinters in numbers up to Midlands and North West. Even more extraordinary in this group is Cattle Egret.(c) My 1999 copy of Collins Bird Guide ( Britain and Europe) shows a few breeding areas at the eastern end of the Med, and overwintering ranges in southern Spain and N Africa.UK's first record of breeding cattle egrets, in Somerset was in 2008. Since then, they have become an increasingly common sight in the UK and, although still a rare breeding bird here, have nested in several other counties and look likely to become more established.They even managed to cross the Atlantic to reach South America, and have dispersed throughout that continent and up into North America, with breeding recorded as far north as Canada. This winter I have lost count of the numbers in Sussex and Kent . Perhaps most exotic of all in this Heron like group is Glossy Ibis . A migratory species of wetland habitat, around the Med which is seen more and more frequently in UK, its Southern Spain breeding area ( Donana) is the key to our influx. Drying out of breeding grounds is forcing it north. A failed breeding attempt a few years ago will surely be followed by success before long. Meanwhile it can be seen this winter in numbers across the SE :- www.rarebirdalert.co.uk/realdata/gallery_show.asp?galleryid=79942&page=1&sort=4&SpeciesID=1360&L1=0&L2=7&L3=7European Bea Eater :- ebird.org/species/eubeat1?siteLanguage=en_GBand Black -winged Stilt :- www.rarebirdalert.co.uk/v2/Content/Black-winged_Stilt_chicks_hatch_at_Cliffe.aspx?s_id=268432598have both bred here recently . Add in the White Storks returning to their breeding area at the Knepp reintroduction site in Sussex, and the White tailed Eagles exploring the South of England from their Isle of White reintroduction site , and birding in a UK winter has never been more interesting. (c)  (b) Attachment Deleted(a) Attachment Deleted |
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Post by shevii on Feb 8, 2022 20:06:56 GMT
colinNice pics- more the success story though as I can't tell these Herons apart :-) I think this is a bog standard one but for a few months he was something we looked forward to seeing on our walks at an isolated, probably former mining created pond. It might have a couple of ducks or moorhens on it but always special to see something that you don't expect to be there and a shame he didn't make a permanent home there.  Attachment Deleted![]()
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Post by Deleted on Feb 8, 2022 20:32:09 GMT
sheviiGrey Heron.Yes its nice to have a spot to visit regularly and look for changes over time.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 12, 2022 9:47:06 GMT
Birds migrate on the American continent as they do in Europe & Asia. Winter westerlies occasionally fling them across the Atlantic. I have spent many happy days on Scilly or West Penwith looking for/at these rare vagrants. One such beauty currently finds itself in an Eastbourne cul de sac , wondering why this doesn't seem much like Florida  :- www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjhk_NUjJWE |
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Post by leftieliberal on Feb 12, 2022 12:19:32 GMT
I had been wondering for a few days why our local garden birds had been staying away from my bird feeders until this morning when on my way back from the shops I saw our local sparrowhawk for the first time for several years. It was flying below roof height along the road in front of my house and using the wind to nearly hover as it searched for small birds.
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Post by robert on Feb 17, 2022 18:59:13 GMT
Not sure if this will work but here's a photo of a baby owl that my brother in law and I rescued after he tried to fly, but didn't. He weighed only a few ounces - all feather. We were able to put him back in the barn from whence he came. Quite why he attempted a flight on a bright sunny day, I have no idea. 
This was how we found him  |
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Post by robert on Feb 17, 2022 19:18:06 GMT
This was what the French call a phweem (that may not be the way it is spelt!) Pine Martin to us I think but I stand corrected if I'm wrong. It is dead and had fallen of the roof of the porcherie which adjoined our house. The bizarre thing was that there was another similarly dead on the other side of the building. Quite why they died at the same time remained a mystery.  |
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Post by robert on Feb 17, 2022 19:24:39 GMT
I think this is a Tree Frog which hide in the greenery and are very difficult to spot. This was on a fence just by the BBQ.  |
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Post by robert on Feb 17, 2022 19:33:21 GMT
One of the things we were pestered by in the summer were Asian Hornets, which are much bigger than the British variety and quite aggressive. I got rid of a number of nests over the years but not this one! It eventually blew down in a storm in the winter. You can just make it out at the lhs of the top of this Canadian Redwood. The second photo I took with a telephoto lens. The tree itself is about 200/220 years old, so dates from just after the French Revolution.   |
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Post by robert on Feb 17, 2022 19:53:54 GMT
The history of Poitou-Charentes' famous long, shaggy-haired donkeys and the hard working mule, the "Âne"... The History The Poitou donkey, known in France as Le Baudet de Poitou, is one of the most endangered species in the world today. In 1977 there were just 44 registered pure bred donkeys left in the world and even today there are fewer than 400 worldwide. Most recognisable by its long shaggy coat which is always black or dark brown, the Poitou donkey has a massive bone structure and is known for its strength. The coat is such a strong breed trait that a donkey with only one eight pure Poitou breeding may resemble the Baudet. Some historians believe that the Baudet existed in France during the Roman occupation in 54BC, certainly during the Middle Ages, owning one was a sign of prestige afforded only by the nobility. The primary job of the Baudet was one of breeding. They were crossed with the Mulassière horse which was the horse of the Poitou and produced the Poitou Mule. In its heyday, it is said that the region produced 30,000 mules per year of very high quality and bred for France and the rest of Europe. These mules were prized as the finest working animal in the world. Baudet were kept purely for blood stock, not being good riding animals and great care was taken to ensure that the donkeys were not crossed or sold out of the region. As a result, the breed was kept pure for hundreds of years. These were some that a local farmer put on our field when he ran out of grass in the dry summer. 
The Decline
After World War II, when motorised vehicles took over in agriculture, demand for the mule dropped and as a result, the Poitou donkey became redundant.
Prior to that, France, ravished and hungry from two World Wars saw hundreds of Poitou donkeys sent to the slaughterhouse to provide meat for the starving nation and it was only the 1977 that showed the alarming fact of how few pure breed Poitou donkeys were left in the world.
Faced with the possible extinction of their beloved animal, breeders banded together to preserve it, although to date, there are still believed to be fewer than 400 Poitou donkeys worldwide.
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